Songs Next Door

In Creole or Portuguese, alone or as a choir, slamming or belting it out – the inhabitants reveal something of themselves as they sing on what’s not a stage set but the social housing project they call home. The ululations of an old Berber woman answer the children hiding behind a fountain… But the laughter and beautiful hanging gardens don’t totally distract us from the cracked concrete, the graffitied walls and the solitude of some of the residents. How does one link up the individual and the collective? How does one make the trivial beautiful? In its very form, the film appropriates architect Renée Gailhoustet’s unique housing project; and when we see the abandoned shopping trolley encountering the waterlilies in a pool, we get a clearer understanding that the social utopia of La Maladrerie is first and foremost down to the rich diversity of its inhabitants. 

Éva Tourrent
Tënk's Artistic Director