J LIFE
Arising from an encounter with a young foreign woman in Italy, J LIFE is an ongoing, multilayered project that is being developed through photography, video and prose.
Arising from an encounter with a young foreign woman in Italy, J LIFE is an ongoing, multilayered project that is being developed through photography, video and prose.
From the story of a political refugee, a victim of trafficking – from which the short film LIFELIE (2020) is derived – the artist unlocks a thought-provoking reflection on identity and freedom, the body and censorship and closeness and violence between people and cultures.
J, a young woman from Lagos, recounts her life in Nigeria, Libya, and Italy. Close to her is another woman, their breathing, their bodies almost touching in the room where one photographed, the other was photographed. A close voice, a fragmented body, a solitary gaze.
Best Director , Best Cinematography , Best Editing , XIII International Short Film Festival, 2020
Photos stolen with a cell phone, in which the artist had been asked not to photograph mother and daughter, cropped to protect them, or instantly stolen fragments of the private daily life of a family with restrictions on how and when they can meet. The indecency of every photograph that claims as its own something that belongs to others, the violence of laws that undermine the integrity of natural relationships, the limitations of images forced into silence in their narrative.
J’s handwritten words about his pains and joys, sparked by the portraits taken by Paola Risoli, jotted down on notebooks and slips of paper. The artist’s words about what lies behind the blacks of the short film LIFELIE, inscribed on repeated images of J’s face. Excerpts from Juvenile Court documents, the Ministry of the Interior file, and reports from the Franz Fanon Center in Turin. Cut-out texts, overlapping letters, no longer decipherable, custody, a trace, the protection of sensitive aspects of a story that also raises questions about its potential disclosure.
J LIFE
Italy 2019
11’13”
digital video FHD
color
stereo audio
pidgin (Nigerian English)
Italian subtitles
shooting sound editing: Paola Risoli
script and story: Paola Risoli
production: self-produced film
XIII International Short Film Festival TSN
Rome, 18 – 21 June 2020
BEST DIRECTION
BEST PHOTOGRAPHY
BEST EDITING
Documentary Section
Artistic Director: Mimmo Calopresti,
President of the Jury: Flavia Perina
