Pierre-Yves Vandeweerd
Belgium | 2004 | 55 min
Languages : French, Sundanese
Subtitles : French, English
Southern Sudan, 1997. A film about the everyday life in a country at war for 30 years. The filmmaker, who left to bear witness to a forgotten plight, returns with material that does not succeed in expressing his intentions. It will remain unused. Seven years later, learning of the massacre of the majority the people he had filmed, making a film from the images he had collected becomes necessary.
The third film by Pierre-Yves Vandeweerd is actually his first. Years earlier, the filmmaker journeyed to southern Sudan to bear witness to the forgotten status of a country at war for 30 years. However, the material he recorded did not allow him to express his intentions and it remained unused. Seven years later, learning of the massacre of the majority the people he had filmed, he saw that making a film from these black-and-white images he had collected was necessary. Time, the absolute master of the power of things, had given them an irresistible urgency. Bodies of lost phantoms wandering through an area without roots, these men, women and children are already dead, without yet knowing it. The civil war has killed the links, the culture, and the respect for the other. And yet they still speak: they warn the filmmaker to be careful, because mines are everywhere; they walk while praying to God; they discuss violence as an engine for social change; they would like to study, learn... The film revives the fact that they are no longer here. The filmmaker's voiceover is a confession of mourning. Once again, the distant and the close come together: distant in time, yet close to the heart.
Luciano Barisone
Trailer
