Jhonatan santos
Helena Santos
In the 1960s, the suburbs were meant to be modern havens for newcomers from rural France, Portugal, Spain, North Africa, and Africa, helping rebuild post-war France. Large housing complexes symbolized this ideal, offering comfort, heating, and electricity. But by the 1980s, disillusionment set in as economic crisis, unemployment, poverty, crime, racism, and police violence took hold. Mohamed Bouhafsi tells the story of a dream that didn’t last.
For the past two months, we dedicated out lives to documenting the life of Sam. Every human on a day to day basis encounters a "Sam", a peculiar somewhat unpredictable seemingly valueless person, and what you would probably refer to as "douchebag" or "arrogant prick". We found ourselves unknowingly siding with society until we took the time to really observe and realize the childhood trauma and drug abuse that contributed to creating this flawed but valuable human being.
The journey of two storks on an ordinary workday reveals the urgent crisis in maternal health care in the United States. One stork has a relatively safe trip to deliver her baby, while the other faces significant dangers, risking her life; each obstacle serves as a metaphor for various forms of violence or obstetric complications. Throughout her journey, the protagonist visually deconstructs herself, just as she does the idealization of motherhood. A layer of reality begins to take over the screen through experimental manual painting. Upon reaching the maternity ward, the stark difference between the two storks becomes clear: the one who barely survived is the one delivering a Black baby.
