Notes on the Circus

The idea for this film comes from the encounter with two African boys who live in Rome, and is based on their music. Tunisian Afif and Senegalese Aliou tell their different stories, talk about friendship, immigration, freedom and, above all, about the fundamental value of making music together.

An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time. (Silent short, voiced in 1937 and 1996.)

A fictional documentary that portrays the city of Dakar, Senegal, as we hear the conversation between a Senegalese man (the director, Djibril Diop Mambéty) and a French woman, Inge Hirschnitz. As we travel through the city in a picturesque horse drawn wagon, we chaotically rush into this and that popular neighborhood of the capital, discovering contrast after contrast: A small African community waiting at the Church's door, Muslims praying on the sidewalk, the Rococo architecture of the Government buildings, the modest stores of the craftsmen near the main market.

Footage yarn sliding over trees, fields, buildings, bulldozers, power lines... while a monotonous hum exacerbates the images.

A homage to Andrei Tarkovski made for the Spanish edition of the Chris Marker movie 'Une journée dans la vie d’Andrei Arsenevich'.

A group of friends share a cinematographical experience in a particular region of Spain, Galicia. The goal is simple: to film what they like, without preconceived ideas about what should be filmed. They want their images to reflect the feelings that unite them with the people they find along the way.

In conversations with passionate sociologist and political thinker Jean Pichette, the filmmaker views the forced downtime stemming from the current crisis as an opportunity to rethink our modes of existence and our relationship to others, nature, science, the economy, art, politics—in short, everything that makes us human.

A videographic snapshot of one of the most bizarre points in human history.