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Ilan Serruya

Reunión

Documentaire | mov | couleur | 65:0 | Espagne | 2018

“Reunion” is the encounter between a father and a son. A moment marked by landscape, distance and silence. Ilan is cutting his own hair. He is getting ready to travel to Reunion Island. There lives his father, Raphael. An island is a piece of land surrounded by water on all its parts. A reunion is the act of making two or more things coincide at one point, sometimes colliding with one another. This meeting between the father and the son is distinguished by the absence of words, by everyday gestures, by different body postures, by the expression of their faces and by the few sentences that articulate an attempt to resume what seems to be an impossible dialogue. Raphael smokes on the chair, studying his son with his eyes. He is breathing hard. Among them, a camera acts as an intermediary. It observes them together and separately. It is a mediation device: it restrains the dialogue, registers the look on their faces and records the silence. The camera favors the meeting to take place. It protects them from the past and places them only in the present. We do not know the reasons that led them to this situation, nor the time that happened since they last saw each other. We only know that they are there, in Reunion. A path in the forest. Roots in the ground. Fog and cracks.

Ilan Serruya grew up between the cities of Mar del Plata (Argentina) and Seville (Spain). He studied Fine Arts (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), holds a degree in Film Editing (Instituto del Cine de Madrid) and Master LAV (Audiovisual Laboratory of Creation and Contemporary Practice). His search as a visual artist go into focusing on to autobiographical events, and his works often reveal some found domestic material. His feature film “Reunion” (2018) was selected for Input 2018 -Space for tutoring and advising film projects organized by (S8) Mostra de Cinema Periférico-. “Reunion” had its world premiere at Doclisboa (International competition) and its Spanish premiere at Seville European Film Festival (Endless Revolutions competition). The world premiere of “What is a zeide for?” (2018) was held by Filmadrid International Film Festival. His short film “The lost distance” (2016) participated in cinema screenings at Guadalajara (Mexico), Rome (Italy), Prague (Czech Republic) or festivals like Una casa: Muestra de cine documental autobiográfico (Spain).