Laurence Favre
Switzerland | 2013 | 28 min
World premiere
Language : French
Subtitle : English
“In 1947, Marie Tinguely left her homeland to work in a Swiss Mission bush hospital in South Africa. After her death, her films shot throughout her 25-year life as a missionary were found in a family apartment along with some of her correspondence. I decided to explore them.” (LF) A captivating essay about a French Swiss nun's impressions of Africa.
“In 1947, Marie Tinguely left her homeland to work in a Swiss Mission bush hospital in South Africa. After her death, her films shot throughout her 25-year life as a missionary were found in a family apartment along with some of her correspondence. I decided to explore them.” (LF)
Mass, the canteen, work. Nature. And faces, mostly African. The flow of amateur archives and their power to fascinate are countered here in a succession of title cards – text fragments – distancing them in another agenda of rhythm and semantics. A clever montage, based on a standoff between discourse and viewpoint, reveals the strong ambivalence of these images. What they show or do not show: the gaze of black people into the camera of a white person, off screen. The perfect world of the mission, the exoticism of the places and the violence of Apartheid are all relegated to the ranks of rumour. What they reveal: humanity and paternalism. What motivates them: the desire for emancipation of a young French Swiss woman who went to serve a colonial order. Alessia Bottani