{"id":7826,"date":"2023-12-06T04:10:50","date_gmt":"2023-12-06T04:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/?p=7826"},"modified":"2023-12-06T04:15:14","modified_gmt":"2023-12-06T04:15:14","slug":"agwe-la-espera-como-destino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/en\/notas\/agwe-la-espera-como-destino\/","title":{"rendered":"Agwe la espera como destino"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201bAgwe': waiting as a destination<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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By \u00c1NGEL P\u00c9REZ \u2013 December 4th, 2023<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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RIALTA<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Still from ' Agwe' (2023, Haiti); Samuel Suffren (IMAGE Courtesy of INSTAR Film Festival).<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Agwe (Samuel Suffren, 2022) begins and ends at sea. For its protagonists, the sea is both salvation and damnation. Agwe tells a love story, the sacrifice of a couple subjugated by hostile life circumstances. Fran\u00e7ois and Mirlande place the fate of their love and the future of the child she carries in her womb in the possibility of leaving the fishing village where they live, in Haiti, and reaching the United States. Fran\u00e7ois tells a friend as they fish: \"I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I have to leave. I can't stay here any longer and watch the situation get worse. The sea is the only way.\u201d<\/p>

In Haitian vodou, Agwe is the patron saint of fishermen. That is the name Fran\u00e7ois chooses for his son when he is about to leave for the United States in a rather precarious boat loaded with people. Mirlande watches it sail away in the hope of seeing her companion soon; with the illusion that, in a short time, the three of them (them and their son) will be reunited in better living conditions.<\/p>

Facing the dangers of this sea voyage is a bet for tomorrow, for happiness. In an inhospitable rural environment, this pair of lovers subsist, stricken by poverty, hunger, health insecurity, and the absolute lack of opportunities. The description of the setting - solved by Suffren with dramatic economy - makes it possible to explain the characters' decisions; no words are needed. In a certain scene, Mirlande, pregnant, resignedly picks up her fish stall, her face dismayed and her body exhausted; in this brief sequence, her uneasiness becomes apparent and Fran\u00e7ois' American dream is justified.<\/p>

When Fran\u00e7ois comments to his wife, during dinner, in the dim light of the small house where they live, that a boat will soon be leaving for the United States, and that he should take advantage of the opportunity, she immediately replies, with an expression of astonishment: \"What am I going to do alone without you? A moment later, they both frolic, embrace, and laugh loudly in bed, excited by the very idea of a better life. The danger of the journey fades for a few seconds.<\/p>

This story is woven under the declared purpose of addressing the migration tragedy in Haiti. But the filmmaker is not interested in the inhuman hardships of the crossing, in the accidents of the journey; perhaps the profile most attended to by cinema. Suffren - who competes with this film at the IV INSTAR Film Festival (December 4-10) - takes the focus away from the experience of those who leave and places it on those who stay; he examines the impact of emigration on those who wait, in silence, like Mirlande, suffocated by uncertainty and loneliness.<\/p>

Without too many parliaments or dramatic accents, with a limpid handling of the emotional curves of the characters, Suffren describes the inner schism of a woman who, after ten years, still hopes to be reunited with her husband. With no news, with her son grown up, she does not know if Fran\u00e7ois has reached his destination or perished in the attempt. However, nothing will make her give up the man she once swore to love on the waters where she now evokes Agwe.<\/p>

One of the virtues of this short film is its intelligent dramatic articulation. The story is not plotted as a succession of actions, as a chain of causes and effects, as might be expected after the first few minutes. Once the characters are introduced, the ethos of the village is described, and the director rehearses some subtle temporal curves and visual and narrative ellipses that, in addition to conferring synthesis to the story, favor its penetration into the affective and familiar cosmos of the characters. The organic time jump that shifts the plot by about ten years is striking; in this way, the wear and tear and, at the same time, the resistance of the protagonist, now accompanied by the child, na\u00efve, perhaps, before the mother's pain, is underlined at a dramatic level and described at a visual level. A succession of contemplative shots - of documentary quality and iconically elaborated - define Mirlande's existential abyss.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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One moment is particularly effective, not only in terms of dramatic construction but also in terms of discourse construction: the one in which the wedding of the protagonists is staged on a boat in the middle of the sea. It is not clear whether these images emanate from Mirlande's memories or are products of her imagination. A fleeting shot reveals the son's face as the parents confess their love for each other; we no longer know if these images are a dream of the protagonist, incited by loss, or a memory tainted by the pain of a long wait. In its poetic visual presentation, this sequence sums up the deep sadness of this woman and explains her decision to take the path of the sea.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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From 'Agwe' (Haiti, 2022); Samuel Suffren (IMAGE estivaldecineinstar.com)<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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At the visual level, the dominant register is naturalistic, marked by the slovenliness of a hand-held camera that accompanies the movements of characters. But this slovenliness is transformed into virtue, into style, whenever it describes with certainty the environment, a geography that exudes the same despair that has led Fran\u00e7ois to choose emigration. Close-ups of the actors' faces also abound; their expressive interpretations condense in each glance the suspension that the characters inhabit.<\/p>

At the beginning and end of Agwe, Mirlande is heard invoking the ocean loa vodu: \"The body's best friend is the sea. Its waves bring hope, the hope of a better life elsewhere.\" That hope is all these people have. With the sea at their feet, emigration is, for many Haitians, the beginning and end of their lives.<\/p>

For Cuba, the INSTAR Film Festival is screening this short fiction film from December 4 to 10 through the online platform Festhome. It will also arrive this Tuesday in Argentina when it will be screened at the Centro Cultural General San Mart\u00edn in Buenos Aires; on December 5, 6, and 7 it will be shown at the Laboratorio Arte Alameda in Mexico City, and on Thursday 7 it will be presented at the Zumzeig Cinecooperativa in Barcelona, Spain.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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You can read the original note\n here\n<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201bAgwe\u2019: la espera como destino Por \u00c1NGEL P\u00c9REZ – 04 diciembre, 2023 RIALTA Fotograma de \u2018 Agwe\u2019 (2023, Hait\u00ed); Samuel Suffren (IMAGEN Cortes\u00eda del Festival de Cine INSTAR) Agwe\u00a0(Samuel Suffren, 2022) empieza y termina en el mar. Para sus protagonistas, el mar es salvaci\u00f3n y condena.\u00a0Agwe\u00a0cuenta una historia de amor, el sacrificio de una pareja […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"disabled","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7826"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7826"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7833,"href":"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7826\/revisions\/7833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/festivaldecineinstar.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}