La Solitude takes as its starting point the events around the outcome of the Dreyfus Affair in 1894, events which can shed significant light on the role played by the new medium of the moving image in shaping the imagination and consciousness of millions of people.
Shot in French Guiana and on Devil’s Island, the film sets out to trace the diverse, violent histories of the land, from the early days of the slave trade, through the days of the penal colonies, to the new horizons of the European Space Port, all located within a short distance from each other.
Shot on 16mm film, La Solitude is an attempt to place the Dreyfus Affair at the heart of the birth of cinema, while addressing the myth of "objective" or "direct" reportage. Villages, ruins, jungles, animals, museums, natives, and landscapes appear in vignettes, edited to support an unseen narrator who provides a voice-over account, a monologue using multiple points of view that expose how and why the affair should be regarded as the first modern media event.
The CDA's archives are operating with the support of the Ostrovsky Family Fund and Artis
