ÉCOUTEZ LE BATTEMENT DE NOS IMAGES – LISTEN TO THE BEAT OFOUR IMAGES
Audrey Jean-Baptiste, Maxime Jean-Baptiste | France 2021 | 15 Min. | French with engl. Subtitles
SUNDAY, 11.05. | 7:45 pm
De France, Saal 1 | TICKETS
Part of the focus program sonic frictions
Two siblings delve into the traces of spatial expansion, where out-of-space exploration becomes symptomatic for the legitimization of the colonial project. France expropriated and displaced 660 people in Kourou, French Guiana to expand into the unknown, and make way for the newly established CNS space center after the Algerian independence. Archives of gleaming white architectures, choreographies through dazzling futurist infrastructures – rocket launches and shiny technologies – colonial performances of progress and renewal. Blanks and Blacks holding space for dislocated images, memories and imaginaries of Kourou. Voices and beats, deeply inscribed not only into the film’s body but into the land itself, becoming undercurrents driving a narration on the impossibility of erasure and the importance of listening.
Directors: Audrey Jean-Baptiste, Maxime Jean-Baptiste
Camera: Maxime Jean-Baptiste
Editing: Audrey Jean-Baptiste, Maxime Jean-Baptiste
Music: Maxime Jean-Baptiste
Production: Observatoire de l’Espace du CNES
BIOGRAPHIES
Maxime JEAN-BAPTISTE (1993) is a filmmaker who works between Brussels and Paris. He grew up in France, in the context of the Guyanese and West Indian diaspora. As an artist, he is interested in the complexity of Western colonial history by detecting and portraying the survival of past traumas in the present. In doing so, he delves into archives and types of reenactments that imagine living and embodied memories.
Audrey JEAN-BAPTISTE is a documentary and fiction film director. She works between France and French Guyana. Her films addresses issues of race, gender and sexuality. Her first documentary film Fabulous (2019) was selected in about 60 international festivals such as IDFA. A national release was scheduled for December 9, 2020. Her second film, Listen to the beat of our images, co-directed with her brother Maxime Jean-Baptiste, was selected in more than 90 festivals, such as Sundance, at CPH:DOX, Hotdocs and the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival. Her third film Adieu l’enfance (2021) produced by Film Grand Huit, premiered at the Champs-Élysées Film Festival. She also directed an episode of a documentary series produced by Showtime which will be broadcast in 2023. Her last movie Stella Nova, produced by Amazon and Yukunkun is in post production.
