Since 2015, Caroline Guiela Nguyen has been working with detained actors at the Maison Centrale d’Arles. She imagined a fantastic tale for them. Neither documentary, nor subject about prison, Les Engloutis is a powerful fiction that places us in the near future.
After a wave has swallowed half of humanity, waiting places are invented to maintain the link with the disappeared. Over the years, these places are filled with grief and hope. Until the day when the disappeared come back…
It was asked of those who would assure the continuation of the world to count themselves.
Some people began to declare their Departed.
We were registered as missing. Others refused, because many of them thought that the violence of the Great Floods had probably carried us to the other end of the continent, and they needed only to be patient, and wait: it would take time for us to come round, find the right path back to our homes, return at last…
It was at this period that the government of the new world, to help seek us out, green-lighted the construction of recording booths in each city of every country, where any person could leave video messages that others could consult in the hope that they might recognize a brother, a father or a much loved wife.
Every day our families returned to these places to leave us new messages.Many never stopped looking for us, actively continued to expect our return.
Extract from the scenario of “Les Engloutis ” (The Departed” Caroline Guiela Nguyen
Years went by 10 years, 20 years, 30 years
But we remained unfindable. No-one ever came back.
Throughout those years, these places of waiting were a reservoir of inconsolable grief mixed with boundless hope. There were calls by some to shut down these places that the government of the new world had thought up on the grounds that they needlessly fanned vain hopes and prevented families from coming to terms with their grief. Others though, quite on the contrary, demanded that these places be protected as temples are protected for future generations to discover. Lest we forget.
2019 – 2020
Les Engloutis (The Departed)– FILM
shot and directed in 2020 at Arles Prison
Festival Côté Court – Pantin Panorama Selection
Clermont International Shortfilm Festival, international and national competition
Le Monde 09.03.2020
PROJECTIONS
2021
14 July – First screening of Les Engloutis, during the TERRITOIRES CINÉMATOGRAPHIQUES festival
13 October— Cinéma le Nouvel Odéon, Paris 6e
from 12 to 15 November — Parvis, scène nationale de Tarbes
27 December — Studio Film und Bühne, Vienne, Austria
2022
8 January — cinéma Lumière Bellecour, Lyon
from 28 January to 5 February— Clermont International Shortfilm Festival, international and national competition
22 February— TNB, Rennes
from 30 March to 9 April — France focus of the Festival internazionale Segni della Notte, Italy
8 April – médiathèque de Martigues
4 May – Lieux fictifs, Marseille
15 June —, Festival Côté Court, Panorama selection, Pantin
2 July – Concertina, summer meetings about confinement, Dieulefit
September — Les Chichas de la pensée – Festival d’Automne, Théâtre de la Ville, Paris
2023
25 February — La Comédie de Clermont-Ferrand
Scenario and direction Caroline Guiela Nguyen
Script doctor Juliette Alexandre
Head of film photography Augustin Barbaroux
With
Dan Artus, Ava Baya, Pascal Chazel, Sheila Coren Tissot, Anthony Costes, Sayyid El Alami, Galynette, Violette Garo, Adeline Guillot, Cédric Luste, Laure Mathis, Nino, Alexandre Pallu, Jean Ruimi, Esteban Sanchez, Michel W., Manon Worms, Léon Zongo
1st assistant director Claudia Lopez Lucia
2nd assistant director Claire Calvi
1st assistant operator Jonas Gayraud
Head set sesigner Alice Duchange
Assistant set designer Jules Bouteleux
Costumier designer Benjamin Moreau
Sound engineer Gaël Eléon
Chief electrician Colin Lefebvre
Chief machinist Pierre Marion-Andrès
Stage ManagerAlexandre Kassis
Stage trainee Kenza Vannoni
Image montage Juliette Alexandre
Musical creation Antoine Richard
Production Les Films du Worso (Sylvie Pialat – Benoit Quainon) ; Les Hommes Approximatifs