Kouté Vwa
Listen to the Voices
,
Kouté Vwa
Locarno Laurel
Language
Taal
Langue
Creole, French
Subtitles
Ondertitels
Sous-titres
Dutch, English
Duration
Duur
Durée
76'

Melrick, a thirteen-year-old boy, spends his summer vacation with his grandmother Nicole in Cayenne, Guyana. During his visit, his desire to learn to play the drum brings back the specter of his uncle Lucas, also a drummer, who died in tragic circumstances eleven years earlier. Faced with the grief that haunts his family and Lucas's best friend's desire for revenge, Melrick seeks his own path to forgiveness.

“What makes Listen to the Voices a family matter is not  only this collaboration, but the personal tragedy that set it in motion. The director’s cousin, Lucas Diomar, was brutally killed in 2012, plunging his family into an abyss of grief from which they have not yet emerged.”

Pierre Jendrysiak and Leonard Krähmer

“On a deeper layer, this story about grief and forgiveness also deals with the persisting consequences of colonialism: a violence that equally cannot pass. This aspect, while undeniable, is conveyed by Jean-Baptiste with considerable subtlety, as it does not come so naturally to the characters.”

Pierre Jendrysiak, Leonard Krähmer

“Oscillating between fiction and documentary, the film is at once a coming of age story, following the trajectory of a young man attempting to build himself in the memory of an uncle sacrificed on the altar of the endemic violence that plagues the streets, an exploration of that memory with dreamlike overtones, and a reflection on inherited violence, a family heritage, but also a historical and colonial one.”

Aurore Engelen

The original title of the film – “Kouté vwa” is French créole for “Listen to the Voices” – succinctly sums up its poetic program: a polyphony of entangled testimony. Drawing on the deeply personal source of the story, the film summons these various voices and opens up a resonance chamber between them

Pierre Jendrysiak and Leonard Krähmer

“Maxime Jean-Baptiste has crafted a delicate film with a lot of attention to some small, but relevant, details. These little things that he reflects upon thus create a bigger picture which even has more of a purpose than, perhaps, a larger picture that captured events as a whole would. It’s the minor details which coalesce within the movie that make it both intriguing and fascinating to behold.”

Thomas Duffy

Awards
Awards
Awards
→ Special Mention of the First Features Awards, Locarno Film Festival 2024
→ Special Jury Prize CINE + Concorso Cineasti del Presente, Locarno Film Festival 2024
Festival Selections
Festival selecties
Sélections festivals
→ 77 Locarno Film Festival, Switzerland (2024)
→ Chicago International Film Festival, USA (2024)
→ Festival International du Film documentaire d’Amazonie et des Caraïbes (FIFAC), French Guiana (2024)
→ Festival International du Film Indépendant de Bordeaux (FIFIB), France (2024)
→ Festival Monde en Vues, Guadeloupe (2024)
→ FIC Monterrey, Mexico (2024)
→ Film Fest Ghent, Belgium (2024)
→ Französische Filmtage Tübingen-Stuttgart, Germany (2024)
→ Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal (RIDM), Canada (2024)
→ Vancouver International Film Festival, Canada (2024)
→ Viennale, Austria (2024)
Language
Taal
Langue
Creole, French
Subtitles
Ondertitels
Sous-titres
Dutch, English
Duration
Duur
Durée
76'
A Film by
Een film van
Un film de
With
Met
Avec
Melrick Diomar, Nicole Diomar, Yannick Cébret
Script
Scenario
Scénario
Audrey & Maxime Jean-Baptiste
Image
Beeld
Image
Arthur Lauters
Sound
Geluid
Son
Kylian Dadi, Tanguy Lallier
Producer
Producent
Producteur
Rosa Spaliviero, Olivier Marboeuf
Editing
Montage
Montage
Liyo Gong
Music
Muziek
Musique
Mayouri Tchô Nèg, Josy Masse, Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders and the London Symphony Orchestra
Sound Editing
Klankmontage
Montage Son
Ingrid Simon
Sound Mix
Klankmix
Mixage son
Thomas Ferrando
Colour Correction
Kleurcorrectie
Etalonnage
Miléna Trivier
Production
Productie
Production
Twenty Nine Studio & Production, Spectres Productions
Co-production
Coproductie
Coproduction
Atelier Graphoui, Shelter prod
With the Support of
Met de steun van
Avec le soutien de
Centre du Cinéma et de l'audiovisuel de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, New Dawn Fund, Tax Shelter du gouvernement fédéral de Belgique, Région Guyane, Région Bretagne