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Younès Ben Slimane

We Knew How Beautiful They Were, These Islands

Doc. expérimental | hdcam | couleur | 20:0 | Tunisie, France | 2022

A lone figure digs a grave in the dead of night. With no dialogue – and no sound other than the wind, the crackling of a fire and the scrape of a shovel against dry earth – we are confronted with a dark and mysterious, possibly cursed, universe where every object seems haunted by a meaning we barely sense, but which seem to confirm our anxieties. The head of an old doll, a comb, a lipstick. Relics whose silent language speaks of the end of their former owners. At sea, in the desert. Younes Ben Slimane’s disturbingly beautiful and melancholic imagery is bathed in darkness and in a golden chiaroscuro, lit only by the stars and the lone grave diggers’ headlamps.

Younès Ben Slimane : Artiste et cinéaste tunisien, diplômé du Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains en 2022. Ses films ont été sélectionnés dans des festivals internationaux parmi lesquels Locarno Film Festival, CPH:DOX, DokuFest, Festival dei Popoli. Il a reçu le a remporté le Tanit d'or aux journées cinématographiques de Carthage (2019), le Prix Studio Collector(2021) et le prix Loop Barcelona(2022).Son travail fait partie des collections d’institutions et de musées d’art notamment l’institut d'art contemporain, Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes (IAC), France et le Musée d'art contemporain de Barcelone, MACBA - Barcelone, Espagne. Actuellement, Younès Ben Slimane se consacre au développement de son prochain film grâce au programme Focus Script du Festival de Cannes.