REW–FFWD

Colour, DIGIBETA
Canada, 1994, 31 min
Section: Tribute to Denis Villeneuve

Synopsis

A photographer from the fictitious Periscope magazine comes to Kingston, Jamaica, to meet Miss World 1976. His boss warns him before the trip that he is going to a country where danger lurks around every corner and human life has no value for the local inhabitants. When the photographer’s car breaks down right in the middle of a ghetto, he soon finds out that the people, while appearing somewhat lazy, have an extraordinary sense of community, a desire for education, and, in particular, want to export reggae music. Although he gradually casts aside his prejudices, he still feels as if he is at the center of a storm. This experimental documentary about life in Trench Town, a poor quarter of Kingston, takes the form of a psychodrama; the viewer can see and hear excerpts from scenes and memories recorded by a "black box” monitoring the whole journey. The film received a New York Film Academy Award.