Justine Harbonnier
France, Canada | 2023 | 84 min
World premiere
Language : English
Subtitle : French
Caiti Lord kills time watching the tumble-weeds roll by through the window of the local radio studio in Madrid, New Mexico. In between records, she opens up, confiding her bygone teenage Broadway ambitions. Now, she is 30 years old but she hasn’t given up on her dreams. Armed with her guitar, she decides to sing her blues.
Caiti uses her powerfully visceral voice to entertain listeners of the local radio station in the backwater she now calls home: an isolated hippie town in the American southwest called Madrid. Between records, she chats to them about her shifts at the local bar and her personal worries, while questioning the absurdity of everyday life, far from the idea of the American dream. And yet Caiti was raised in New York, in a world of musicals, glitter and lights: having filmed herself from a young age with her little DV camcorder, she cherishes a host of glamorous memories. Now aged 30, she has shifted to a new musical genre – the blues seems more suited to Madrid, New Mexico, its dreary winter, its pastel tones. In Caiti Blues, Justine Harbonnier carves out a space for Caiti using the strength of the latter’s words, whether they are sung on the radio or in the kitchen, accompanied by her acoustic guitar, or appear on the screen in writing. Within this small community filled with colourful and timeless characters, Caiti has found her place.
Madeline Robert
Andrew Keegan déménage, 2016
