Short film by Benjamin Poumey
Switzerland, 2020, 8’02
A luncheon on the grass among the tombs.
While the living are living, the voices of the dead are floating.
SYNOPSIS
When lunch-time comes, the “Cimetière des Rois” (“Cemetery of Kings”), downtown Geneva, fills up with residents, workers, employees, students of the neighborhood. People come alone, in pairs, with friends or colleagues, to have a snack on the grass or to take a break on a bench.
The living and the dead share a same space.The film makes them share a same time.
Mixing contemporary Super 8 footage of the cemetery and sound archives of personalities buried there, NOON IN THE CEMETERY is a short essay film, a kind of experimental documentary.
If it was a painting, it could be a Vanitas, “a symbolic work of art showing the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death”.
SCREENINGS
– Peripheries International Experimental Film & Video Festival, Boston (USA)
– Short Movie Club – Documentary Competition, Minsk (Belarus)
– Instants Vidéo Numériques et Poétiques, Marseille (France)
– Festifreak, Festival de cine independiente de La Plata (Argentina)
– Lucca Film Festival e Europa Cinema – Short Competition, Lucca (Italy)
– Storie Parallele Film Festival – Short Docs Competition, Salandra (Italy)
– Visioni Urbane – Living the Urban Competition, Bologna (Italy)
– International Portrait Film Festival – “Collective Portrait” Section (Bulgaria)
– Cinearte en la Frontera, XI Encuentro para Cinéfagos (Venezuela)
– Suapaustas Laikas International Experimental Film and Arts Festival (Lithuania)
– Harkat 16mm Film Festival, Harkat (India)
