SCALES FELL FROM THEIR EYES
Coline Confort
Switzerland
Barely out of childhood, Julian is thrust into a role too big for him: finding alternative housing for the last resident of his condemned building.
SYNOPSIS
Lausanne, Switzerland. In a downtown building about to be demolished, the workers and construction noises are ubiquitous. Julian, barely twenty years old, not only lives here, but is also responsible for the last resident, Stefan, whose apartment is leaking with water. He needs to find a solution otherwise they will both end up on the street. Julian is both the prophet of doom and the representative of a powerless authority who can only make empty promises. They are merely out of childhood and dealing with a situation too big for them.
INTENTION
I used to live in the condemned buildings on the Simplon Street and I started filming with a sense of emergency at the arrival of the demolition workers. I wanted to keep a trace of our time in the buildings and of the ways we invested in those walls. Faced with the gap in privilege between those who were going to be rehoused and those who would be returning to the street, I wondered: why give purpose to spaces destined for demolition? How will we be able to leave a place that we have tried to inhabit until the very end? As the President of the Student Housing Association that occupied this space, Julian shared my interrogations. For this short documentary, I chose to place myself in his eyes and footsteps so that he would embody a conflict that concerns me. Faced with the invasion of his living space, Julian is being crushed, like the Simplon building, by the outside world. There are no social workers, no help, no public support. The film tells the end of a story, of a utopia in the center of Lausanne.
DIRECTOR
Coline Confort
Coline Confort is a writer and director based in Lausanne, Switzerland. She holds a Bachelor in cinema from ECAL. Her diploma short documentary film Imperial was selected in many international festivals and won the Best Swiss School Film Award at the Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur. It was nominated in the category Best Graduation Film at the Swiss Film Prize 2022.
PRODUCER
Pascaline Sordet
Pascaline Sordet joined Climage in 2020 as a producer after working as a journalist for 10 years, including a period spent at Cinébulletin where she was editor-in-chief. She won the 2019 Women and Media Prize with her podcast Raffut. She holds a Bachelor in Film from the HEAD in Geneva and a Master in Philosophy from the University of Lausanne.
Genre
Documentary
Length
20 min
Language
English, French, Romanian
Shooting location
Lausanne, Switzerland
Production company
Climage (Switzerland)
Estimated budget
€110.000
Secured funding
Federal Office of Culture - €45.000, Cinéforom Regional Fund - €53.000, Climage - €12.000
Looking for
Sales, Distribution, Festivals