Intrigue

In the Chris Marker exhibition at the Cinémathèque Française, my cousin Jean-Henri recognized himself in La Jetée. Seen from behind, the photo of him and his parents on the observation deck of Orly Airport is the fifth shot of the film. If it's him, he was the hero of the film as a child. Our whole family recognized them, and I was drawn to his vision and the secret paths it opened up into our family history and the story of these images. It was at Orly Airport that we arrived from Algeria in 1962. As for Marker...

Because images imprint themselves on our consciousness, films can and do belong to us. And few films have been more dear to history than Chris Marker's La Jetée (1962), a minimalist masterpiece often ranked among the greatest and most influential. But as acclaimed director Dominique Cabrera belatedly discovers in her latest feature, Marker's science-fiction photo-montage might also be an unwitting historical document about her own family. La Jetée was made the very year Algerian independence was declared, and at a time when hundreds of thousands of French people of Algerian descent, like Cabrera's family, were retreating to Paris via Orly Airport. Sixty years later, the director's cousin is convinced that it is he who appears in the fifth frame of the film, standing next to his parents as they greet their loved ones at the airport. A detective novel ensues, revealing evidence about their family, French colonialism, Marker, and the film itself. Winner of the Golden Dove at DOK Leipzig 2024, First Look MOMI NYC USA 2025, Festival du Réel Paris France 2025...