Documentary music video for Geoffroy (geoffroymusic.com)

I was pretty skeptical the first time I heard someone tell me about the extraterrestrial spaceships that were hovering over specific spots in Vale do Amanhecer, Brazil. A friend of mine had told me about a community believing they were aliens in human bodies. I’m not a particularly spiritual person and that’s why I’m always drawn to those who are, I'm interested in finding out why people believe what they believe, but for the first time in my life, I felt less of an outsider and felt like I could also believe.

I shot this music video in November 2018, right after the elections in Brazil. This hybrid doc/music video/ experimental film really challenged me and the rest of my Brazilian team in our beliefs, spirituality and openness.

While there, my team and I saw and felt different things. After a couple of days in the community, I could feel some vibes I hadn’t felt before.

It became apparent to me that the story I needed to tell was about energy and not about differences, what we were seeing was really special. Of course, everything was kind of sugar-coated in colours and various stimulations of our senses, I don’t like saying this but I felt something tangible. I decided to represent it like I felt it, it is obviously really abstract to represent energy so visually I went back to old paintings in the community, I wanted to be as true as possible to their beliefs but also represent what we felt.

We approached the project really objectively and shot it all that way, detached from our subjects. After we finished shooting, my team opened up about their experience, everyone had felt or seen some things they hadn’t felt before. We were all unsure if it was cool for us to talk about it. I feel like the outcome of the video is a subjective proposition, it’s not a pure documentary, it’s infused by our experience there. That’s why I like this hybrid medium of music videos and documentary because there’s a flexibility in the medium.

Director - Didier Charette
Producers - Bernardo Portella (Cosmo Cine), Simon Lavoie (Sudouest) & Didier Charette
Production manager - Bernardo Portella
Creative Producer - Tadeu Bijos
Line producer - Lindsay Valias
Cinematographer - Bernardo Negri
Camera assistant - Joanna Ramos Carvalho & Erica Oliveira da Silva
Sound - Matheus Oyo Valentim
Production assistants - Guilherme Ribeiro & Camila Barcelar Rodrigues
Driver - Saymon Maquinamara Vieira Silvano
Editor - Olivier Guillemette (OG)
Color Grading - Charles-Étienne Pascal (SHED)
Post - Étienne Bergeron Magicien
Sound mix - Gab Gagnon (HOMY STUDIO)
Fixer & fact checks - Roberta Morais

Thank you to all the people we met in Vale who opened their doors and hearts to us.
Thank you Naima Moreira, Cinelande, POST430, Mishka Kornai, Ye Charlotte Ming & Tadeu.