A Man Imagined

Remarkable because they are both filmmakers of the margins and of intimacy, Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky create provocative documentary works that venture where the common gaze would not dare to go: towards poverty, illness, and death. Their latest film, a production by the NFB that takes us back to the bold and brave days of the institution, outlines the contours of Lloyd, a homeless man surviving in the heart of urban decay. On the outskirts of a highway crisscrossed by indifferent steel monsters, on the fringes of a city that represents both indifference and absolute freedom, Lloyd carves his path of survival. Stricken with schizophrenia, he gradually opens up to the filmmakers' direct approach, with whom he creates a portrait that also allows for the unfolding of his most intimate dreams. At the forefront of documentary cinema, Cassidy and Shatzky reveal a clear evolution in their approach, straddling the line between the fiction allowed by photography and direct observation: not the reflection of a precarious man, but of his innermost self, vibrant and free.

Ariel Esteban Cayer
Programmer
Montreal's Critics' Week