Kite Zo A (Leave the Bones)

Dedicated to the power of Haitian culture, Kite Zo A (Leave the Bones) portrays its subject with all the poetic and musical force of cinema. While showing several real-world sequences (ceremonies, students in class, cockfights, carnival, concerts), the film does not merely bear witness but rather seeks to demonstrate and express the permeability of Haitian daily life to art in all its forms. Rooted in the Vodou culture brought from Africa, this primal need to integrate art into life may serve to counter evil spirits and evoke benevolent goddesses, both literally and metaphorically, but it is also a profoundly concrete need. Simply skating or performing tricks on rollerblades in the streets or parks becomes an artistic statement. The landscapes of the Haitian countryside, filmed in still shots like paintings by grand masters, with their clouds, mountains, and dazzling sun, accompany tracking shots of forests traversed by the bright-colored T-shirts of children chasing each other, laughing. And this doesn't even account for the real-life transformations of artists, sometimes professionals but also ordinary policemen, students, teachers, who become dancers, slam poets, musicians, carnival-goers, acrobats because artistic expression is as necessary to them as breathing. Because it's a way to see life differently. To experience existence differently. To testify to one's freedom and independence. To protest and above all to resist.

Claire Valade
Critic and programmer