Is a short documentary essay film in pre production.
Logline
An ice cream in one hand, on a warm day of October, the streets are covered in orange and yellow leaves. In this contradictory environment, I rediscover a familiar place hosting the ghosts of an almost healed broken heart. Did I ever notice this huge chocolate factory amongst these houses? With a new, less romantic perspective, I learn more about the history of this place.
Intentions
This project bases it inspiration in a couple of key ideas:
Linking a personal story of a broken heart to a bigger picture of social struggle. This idea is consolidated by Italian sociologist Francesco Alberoni’s book Falling in Love (original title Innamoramento e amore). The main idea I took away from this book is how the author classifies both political social movements and love in a same category: they’re both movements. As such, they warp our perceptions of time and the ordinary.
The other key element is that of Hauntology, a philosophical concept coined by Jacques Derrida, which describes, to put it simply, that no concept can be understood independently of another. Our understanding of water is haunted by the possibility of it turning to ice or steam. The film is an attempt at interpreting this concept in a visual and sound language. By superimposing the memories of a lost relationship, of former workers of a factory, and how their disappearance affected everyday life. But in a broader sense as a way of inviting specters of another nature: that of the possibility for another future, one that is neither a seemingly inevitable rise of fascism nor an increasingly predatory capitalism.
Ehrenfeld Hauntology draws inspiration from Sans Soleil (1983) by Chris Marker, that associate many images filmed like a travel log in Tokyo, Guinea-Bissau, San Francisco and Iceland. They’re dubbed by a poetic voice over touching on politics, philosophy, cinema and more. The accumulation ends up sketching a common picture for humanity, independent of time and place, while still describing precise contexts. While my target is a little different (conjuring another future), the means would be similar: based on association of thoughts, images filmed in the city, animated scenes, and archives.
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