Ansuya Blom’s film Misty Man at IDFA 2024
Ansuya Blom’s most recent film Misty Man is part of the programming of the International documentary festival IDFA in Amsterdam.
Synopsis: A young man behind barbed wire, accused of theft, falls to the grass in slow motion. Blom intersperses this powerful image and other shots she filmed in Suriname, such as pelicans screeching around a fishing boat in Paramaribo, with 8mm footage of a first communion procession from her family archive.
Meanwhile, we hear a woman’s voice reading from Disorderly Families (1982) by Arlette Farge and Michel Foucault. This book consists of letters from the archives of the Bastille, often pleas to the judge to lock up a husband or child because their family would otherwise be ruined. We also hear the anthem of the White Horse Society of the American Dakota tribe.
In this way, Misty Man encourages reflection on spatial as well as mental confinement, without making an unambiguous statement about it. The face of a boy in a communion suit is therefore significant: through a digital zoom, his face transforms into a wavy surface made up of pixels. But no matter how far you zoom in, you’ll never know his innermost thoughts.
Misty Man screening times:
Saturday, November 16th: 16:30 – 18:05, Eye: Cinema 2
Tuesday, November 19th: 18:00 – 19:30, Pathé City 3
Wednesday, November 20th: 14:30 – 16:00, Ketelhuis: Zaal 1
Saturday, November 23rd: 21:30 – 22:35, Tuschinski 3
Sunday, November 24th: 13:45 – 14:50, Kriterion 1
For further information visit IDFA.