In December 1969, Thelonious Monk, on tour in Europe, recorded an interview for French TV. Alain Gomis discovered the unedited footage, revealing a dialogue between Monk and the French pianist, Henri Renaud. Gomis brilliantly reassembles this material in the spirit of a deconstructed ‘making-of’, amplifying the tensions through timing, cuts, and sound, so that we feel some of what Monk is experiencing. The interview is charged with the power struggle between the two men, and between white Europe and Black American jazz. It is only when Monk plays that we really hear him.

This screening will be introduced by Dr. Zélie Asava, a specialist in questions of race, gender, screen studies and visual culture. She is the author of The Black Irish Onscreen and Mixed Race Cinemas, and co-editor of a Special Issue of the Journal of Scandinavian Cinema on black and ethnic minority representation. She sits on the Boards of Screen Ireland, the Irish Film Institute, the journal French Screen Studies, Catalyst International Film Festival and the arts magazine Unapologetic, works for the Irish Film Classification Office, and is a member of the European Commission’s ‘Capital of Culture’ panel of experts.

The film will screen with short feature Linda and Irina:

LINDA AND IRINA

(UN PINCEMENT AU COEUR)

Director: Guillaume Brac

38 mins, France, 2023, Digital

It’s the end of the academic year at Hénin-Beaumont high school and there’s a scent of vacation in the air. 15-year-old best friends Linda and Irina are always busy chatting, scrolling through TikTok, confiding in each other, but for them the summer ahead is synonymous with separation. Linda has to move on, for the umpteenth time, and won‘t be back in September. Irina is having a hard time accepting it, as it’s not the first time she’s faced this abandonment… What will become of their friendship? Festival favourite Guillaume Brac (A l’abordage; Tonnerre) brings us another moving and observant documentary, a coming of age portrait, of friendship and ephemerality.

Notes by Marie-Pierre Richard

Screening as part of the IFI French Film Festival, November 15 – 26.