SOCOTRA; THE ISLAND OF DJINNS
Extremely beautiful, extraordinary and exciting.
A melancholic voyage to the lost island of Sinbad.
-Jacinto Antón. El País
The film is the story of a trip on the remote island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean. The expedition is a hard trek to the interior of the island, known in antiquity for its Phoenix and Rukh birds. On the journey are Ahmed Afrar, youngest son of the late sultan of Socotra, some companions and three cameleers with their animals. En route to visit relatives, the socotrians speaking in their own language, tell stories by the fire. During the night, conversation turns to legends of djinns and monstrous snakes that dwell in the cavernous interior of the island. A vanishing world is revealed.
“In this surprising film of ethnographical observation, the aesthetic choice of black and white not only takes us back to ancient times—when the legends were true and people kept them alive by believing in them—but also to the time of cinema’s first explorers, who would film their exotic “travelogues” so as to present them to audiences hungry for discovery.
An introduction to a long-disappeared world, the film keeps the sense of an inaccessible mystery until its final image.”
Luciano Barisone
Director of Visions du Réel, International Film Festival.
Nyon, Switzerland
Festivals:
Visions du Réel, Nyon. Switzerland
Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. Durham. USA
Royal Anthropological Institute Film Festival. (RAI). United Kingdom
Festival Internacional de Málaga. Spain
Documenta Madrid. Spain
Ethnocineca. Wien. Austria
Festival de Cine Africano de Tarifa. Spain
Valetta International Film Festival. Malta
Zanzibar International Film Festival. Tanzania
Film Festival della Lessinia. Italy
Festival International du Film de Nancy Lorraine. France
Cinespaña Film Festival, Toulouse. France
Arab Film Festival. Tübingen. Germany
Luxor African Film Festival. Egypt
Links:
Web page: http://www.socotratheislandofdjinns.com
Jordi Esteva’s web page: http://www.jordiesteva.com/en
Trailer of Socotra, the island of djinns: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSdPevreamM
Contact:
