KOUTÉ VWA – LISTEN TO THE VOICES
Maxime Jean-Baptiste | Belgium, France, French-Guayana 2024, 76 Min. | French, Guyanisch-Creole with engl. Subtitles
SATURDAY, 10.05. | 9:30 pm
De France, Saal 1 | TICKETS
Melrick, the director’s 13-year-old nephew, wants to learn to play the drums and spends the summer with his grandmother Nicole in Cayenne, French Guiana. Memories of his uncle Luca, a celebrated drummer who died in 2012, are awakened as his spirit seems to be omnipresent and alive in the rhythms of the streets. As he comes to terms with his painful past, Melrick searches for his own path.
In a sensitive blend of fictional and documentary narrative in which members of his family play themselves, Maxime Jean-Baptiste brings together his search for justice with his own family history and the realities of a society plagued by constant violence.
Director: Maxime Jean-Baptiste
Camera: Arthur Leuters
Editing: Liyo Gong
Sound: Ingrid Simon, Thomas Ferrando
Production: Twenty Nine Studio & Production – Rosa Spaliviero, Belgium; Spectre Productions – Olivier Marboeuf, France
AWARDS & SCREENINGS
Locarno Film Festival (Switzerland) – Special Jury Prize CINÉ+, First Feature Awards – Special Mention Vancouver International Film Festival 2024 (Canada) – Spectrum
Festival Monde en Vues (Guadalupe) – Prix du Jury Ligue des Droits de l’Homme, Mention spéciale Jury Festival International du Film Indépendant de Bordeaux (France) – Prix Erasmus
FIFAC – Festival International du Film documentaire Amazonie Caraïbes (French Guiana) La Toile des Palmistes (French Guiana)
Viennale (Austria)
CinéMartinique Film Festival (Martinique) – Grand prix Documentaire Film Fest Gent (Belgium) – Official Selection Out of Competition ChicagoInternational Film Festival (USA) – New Directors Competition
Französischen Filmtage Tübingen | Stuttgart (Germany) – Internationaler Wettbewerb Mostra São Paulo (Brazil) – New Directors
Festival des 3 Continents (France) – Special Screening
RIDM – Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal (Canada) FIFAM (France) – Jury Award Best Feature Film and Student Jury Award Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival (Taiwan) – New Wave
IFFR – Rotterdam International Film Festival (Netherlands) – Harbour Festival Premiere Plans d’Angers (France) – Diagonales Compétition Festival En Ville (Belgium) – Compétition Internationale – Prix Scam
Tempo Documentary Festival (Sweden) – Stefan Jarl International Documentary Award True/False Film Fest (USA)
New Directors / New Films (USA)
FICCI Cartagena de Indias (Colombia) – AfroCine
BIOGRAPHY
Maxime Jean-Baptiste (°1993) grew up in the context of the Guianese and West Indian diaspora in France. His work delves into the complexities of colonial history, focusing on archives and forms of reconstitution to conceive a living, embodied memory. His films have travelled to numerous festivals (Berlinale, Sundance, CPH:DOX, Hot Docs, ISFF Clermont-Ferrand, IDFA…). Kouté vwa (2024) is his first feature film, which world premiered at Locarno FF and won the Special Jury Award Cine+.
