Seuls les anges

In the background, a wide shot of the Saint-Nazaire shipyards: a giant cruise liner under construction gleams with a thousand lights. One day it will set sail, laden with the stories of those who came from Eastern Europe to build it. Clément Pinteaux gathers a few of them together between the blue hour and dawn, imprinting them onto the grain of his film, which lends the setting a delicate surreality. In voice-over, a male native of another port – Odessa – tells him that he injured his eye while working, and that it was on the day he regained his sight that the Russian war of invasion began. Natalia, meanwhile, left Yekaterinburg with her daughter, convinced she had nine lives ahead of her, just like a cat. Having already lived so many along the way, she wonders whether she has even one left. The camera moves fluidly from one space to another, from interiors to the docks, listening to these tales of exile that have not always turned out to be escapes. Some even made the decision on a whim, casting a die into the furrow of chance, with the “angels” as their only witnesses, watching over their solitude or their relationships: those that occasionally form when one lingers during a stopover, which then becomes a home port.

Emmanuel Chicon

Seuls les anges, 2026
Va t’en tristesse, 2019
Des jeunes filles disparaissent, 2018