Remi
2011, 16 minutes
A film about the hardships of Immigration
Remi once he lived in a land of warmth and brilliant colours, inhabited by exotic and fabulous beasts like the golden-chested sun bear that as a child he once saw in the rain forest. Now Remi is just one of countless illegal immigrants in a cold foreign city looking for work, hoping to build a new future for himself and the child he had to leave at home; a man who now finds himself on the periphery of society, off the radar and sleeping rough under the staircase of a block of flats. Remi takes whatever legal work he can find, including delivering leaflets for penny’s for a well-meaning Kebab shop owner. Yet through all his trials he has still retained his dignity and humanity and the love he holds for his daughter Mia. When a younger immigrant Inzo cadges a precious cigarette from him, Remi is tempted to go for the dubious well-paid employment that he suggests. However, Remi is put off by the attitude of the ganger, the desperation in the other men’s faces and his own moral code. However, when he discovers an article in the newspapers that keep him warm, telling of floods and famine in his homeland he is driven to despair. He spends what money he has left on a phone card to contact his friends and family – no easy task given the wrecked infrastructure. When finally he contacts his childhood friend Lito, his concern over the devastated village turns to relief when he hears that his daughter Mia is safe. He now feels even more isolated. He knows he must earn enough to get home but he feels a broken man – cut off by society and distance, as exemplified by the small voice of his friend at the other end of the phone. His last scraps of resolve have gone and even when he does try to get the work offered by the ganger he is turned down, his small stature counts against him. Unexpectedly Inzo turns up, in a van belonging to an experimental theatre company – led by the artist Pavlon Tavinsky. They have a job for him if he’s available. He agrees immediately and is transported to a hectic and bewildering world; backstage at a theatre where, as six foot transvestite Rita explains to him, a ground-breaking multimedia production is being put together. One of the troop has been injured though and it’s Remi’s job to replace him, but what does he know about this world? He is, if anything, even more disorientated than before. The job entails Remi to be filmed wearing a bear suit performing a dance routine with three men on a stage. Seeing the bear suit stirs a memory from Remi’s past, a connection is made. Remi, still lost within the bear suit, makes his way to the stage. Under the light it is apparent to the bizarre cross-section of onlookers that he has customized the suit, adding a golden crescent of metal to the chest – he is now the sun bear; the symbol of his home in South East Asia. And as he moves, at first awkward and graceless, his tragic comic dance takes on a life of its own – and the dancers around him begin to connect in an unexpected way. Through the dance his fortitude is strengthened and the most preposterous and outlandish of activities provides the resolve to persevere. The End
