Le libraire de Belfast
Alessandra Celesia
France, Ireland | 2012 | 54 min
World premiere
Language : English
Subtitles : French
A bookseller has to shut up shop. Two brothers – an opera lover and a rap enthusiast – and a young singer with her hopes set on appearing in a television programme are emblematic of a city that hides its wounds and looks to the future with casual indifference. Made like a piece of fiction, with depth and mystery, Le libraire de Belfast takes a close look at ordinary people.
Any town is a repository of moving stories. The focal point of this film is a bookseller forced to shut up shop, around whom Alessandra Celesia places three young music lovers: two brothers – one mad on opera, the other a rapper – and a young singer, whose hopes are set on a TV programme. In the background is the city itself, a living presence, wanting to forget its past and enjoy the fruits of peace and prosperity, even if it means risking bankruptcy.
A fictional but true account, painting a unique picture of Belfast poised between bitter memories and the blandishments of television, Le libraire de Belfast is a tribute to the ordinary people of Ireland. To convey their inner lives, Alessandra Celesia, who is also a stage actress, plunges her protagonists into sequences in which acting plays an important part. Entering into their world, she has made a film in which the characters’ careers are uniquely blended with their dreams, hopes, disappointments and private lives.
Carlo Chatrian
Translation BMP Translations