PERSONAL WORK

Liberté, Égalité, Sagacité
Breathe Entertainment

Official Selection

Title of Piece:	Liberté, Égalité, Sagacité
Production Company:	Breathe Entertainment
Director(s):	Yú
Producer(s):	Stephen Trivieri, Scott McCuaig, Yú
Client:	Moonshine
Instagram Tag:	@jook.singbb @breathe.ent @pierrekwenders @scottymccuaig #LES
Short Synopsis:	SAHARA is a story of African diaspora, reconnection, and finding power within your own origin story. In today’s human ecosystem, there grows an ever expanding focus on material and technological progress that lacks critical thought. Particularly in a Western capitalistic society, there seems to be a pressing need of progress for the sake of progress, of constantly moving forward to “improve” society as a whole. However, there remains the question, what is defined as progress? Does the constant chase for material and technological wealth “improve” our collective well-being as a whole? History shows us that the focus on capitalist ideals has led to the loss of cultural identity and Indigenous knowledge, the separation of whole cultural groups from their motherlands. Indigenous knowledge holds knowledge about medicine, about the natural world, about spiritual health that is invaluable to human life. We move forward, but we lose knowledge from the past. Perhaps to improve, we need to look backwards, and recognize the power that our cultural origins already hold. This is the question I feel represents the push and pull in West Africa today. In this film, the backdrop of material wealth and technological progress is represented by the mining industry that has been a dominant presence in West Africa. The act of mining resources for export to other countries is the foundation for the world’s technological growth, whilst removing power from the communities who actually live there, and trading traditional values of old for new capitalistic ideals. In a dystopian land that is barren and dry, people live and work for the resource that powers our technological progress - cobalt. The world represents what our world might look like if continue progress for the sake of progress. As we move through the film, dialogue and imagery touch on themes of creation, origin stories, and how we should turn back to our cultural roots to find power within ourselves, rather than from new materialistic ideals. We end on images of the people, united together, dancing together around a fire, riding away from the arid wasteland, showing strength by uniting with their own inner power and knowledge that already exist within their cultural roots.