ICI AZOR

A word from the selection committee :

The self-evident, this is what will forever be beautiful in films: a dog is filmed in close-up, observed from all angles, going about its daily activities. Its inner life, inaccessible to the human eye, is a great fantasy – and yet, we shall enter it through the dog, through Azor’s dream… The film shall never reconcile these incompatibilities, instead embracing a delicious simultaneity : at once the heritage of moral scrutiny, pilfered from Robert Bresson (it’s not a donkey but a dog – yet what can be read in Azor’s eyes is every bit as magnificent), and the pure fiction of a communist dog trapped in a fantastical closed world that seems to borrow its conventions from video games played with a mouse. The refusal to solve these contradictions is what gives this film such emotional force: if staying close to the dog works as a tear catalyst, it proves even more powerful when the Russian occupation itself becomes tangible – and in a doggy dialogue, pins us firmly to our human chairs. This dispatch from Ukraine - which severely lacked fiction when it comes to addressing the war – is a precious gift by filmmaker Aliona Zagurovska, winner of the 2016 Entrevues Public Choice Award for La Maison. Our thanks to her for this film that “breaks our hearts but quenches our thirst!” 

Pierre Guidez

Traduction : Aurore Kahan