Who is there?

Meeting the inhabitants of a suburb outside Paris, Souad Kettani talks to them about their relationships with djinns, the non-human beings that predated Islam and were assimilated into it. Through the succession of tales directly involving the people interviewed or their friends and family, the evil spirits are strangely omnipresent. Whether provoking episodes of influence or possession or just prowling around, the djinns seem to incarnate the social or emotional difficulties experienced by the interviewees. The supernatural nature of these stories contrasts with the everyday life and environment of an ordinary suburb. What plays out are the specificities of a dual culture, in other words, its capacity to transpose and survive in other lands and contexts like the powerful role of these figures, making the feelings of relegation bearable – or at least acceptable.

Caroline Châtelet
Journalist and critic