A documentary film project written and directed by Lisa Tafani.
With the support of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region (program assistance).
The time has come for lockdown. As the virus spreads, our government is asking us to shut ourselves away, to hide, to protect ourselves from each other.
No more touching, no more kissing, keep your distance. Offer your smiles or your sorrows only through the magic screens that are supposed to connect us but which isolate us even more.
We are told that we are at ‘war’, we hear talk of ‘curfews’, and suddenly I think to myself that those who are isolated, those who are scared to death, those who cannot move, will die alone. Alone in their homes.
My restaurant has to close, I’m out of work. Everyday life changes time zone, texture. Nothing left to do. With my camera, plenty of time and few kilometres to travel, I’ll go knocking on their doors: the old folks, as they say. Those discreet neighbours who, until now, have inspired only vague indifference in me. I take off on a tangent in my adopted village, which I’ve never had time to visit since I moved here eight years ago. I come from the city, the big one, the capital.
Disobeying, I always want to disobey when someone gives me an order without saying “please”. And then normally you don’t give orders in a democracy, you vote on laws, otherwise it’s rude, it’s like picking your nose without any dignity. All this to say that I fully intend to continue living. In fact, I’m going out for some fresh air. A change of behaviour, a shift in time zones, a new rotation of the planet, a change of nature, rediscovering my own; mental hygiene.