Antoine

In a society bombarded with images, how does a blind child construct their imagination? This is the question filmmaker Laura Bari seeks to answer by delving into the singular universe of Antoine, a five-year old child who has been blind since birth.

Thanks to brilliant staging, Bari succeeds in slipping between the real world and her young protagonist’s inventions: from the very start, her camera stays at the level of Antoine’s head. We then find ourselves in a spy movie where he transforms into Detective Dec. Accompanied by his friends Maëlle and Julietta, he’s on the trail of the mysterious Madame Rousky, who has dissolved into water.

This story is cut through with scenes from Antoine’s daily life. At home or at school, he lives normally and is in full control of his disability. These incursions into real life are punctuated by moments of pure poetry. “Madame Rousky, are you closer to heaven or the earth?” whispers our young narrator. “I’m going to catch you, with a million lemons!” The pursuit of this strange missing character leads to an anthology of irresistible scenes where, as if in a lyric élan, the story leaps from its cinematic bounds. Through his remarkable quest, Antoine compounds the beauty that surrounds him. With his help, we learn to see the world from a new, playful angle—one that lets the light in.

Pascale Ferland
Filmmaker, teacher and programmer