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Maxime Jean-Baptiste Bows Feature Debut ‘Listen to the Voices,’ About Grief, Forgiveness, the Persisting Consequences of Colonialism
Fiction feature ‘Listen to the Voices’ – ‘Kouté vwa’ – was design to help its characters through part of their real-life grieving process.
When asked by Variety about how he aimed to depict Guiana, Jean-Baptiste mentions, as a counter example, “Jean Galmot, Aventurier,” a French ‘70s adventure film, in which his father was an extra – something essential in his shorts “Nou Voix” (2018) and “Moune Ô” (2021). While Nicole – Melrick’s attentive grandmother – seems to have found a way if not exactly to move on, then at least to find some acceptance, Yannick is deeply traumatized by having witnessed the death of his close friend first hand, and therefore “stuck in time,” Jean-Baptiste told Variety. The stirring opening of “Listen to the Voices” consists of slowed down TV coverage of a carnival dedicated to the memory of Lucas: “My previous films were composed of archival footage that I edited a lot,” he says.
Or read this on Variety