Looking for the Perfect Landscape
Looking for the Perfect Landscape is a project and a film that examine the use and the representation of lands and landscapes in Southwestern United States, through the journey of Jamahke, a young Mohave.
Looking for locations for a film production, he meets several tribal members and crosses different areas and sites on reservation and aboriginal lands. Transformed by highways, railroads, and industry, these places are threatened by ongoing urban and energy development. Quite rapidly the process of looking for filming locations reveals the need of portraying other realities.
Developed in dialog with Mohave people from Colorado River Indian Tribe (in Arizona and California), this project depicts their current struggles with industries, as well as questioning how cinema and visual arts contributed to the colonization and cultural appropriations of these lands.
This film is extended by as a ensemble of video interviews and archives.
Along with the screening of the 45 minutes film, this project is presented as well as an four channel video installation.
An 8 minutes video was specifically edited for the online magazine East of Borneo, along with an interview of Etienne de France by curator Anna Milone, on the process and development of the project.
https://eastofborneo.org/articles/artists-at-work-etienne-de-france/
This project was produced by France Los angeles Exchage (FLAX).
Film stills:
Four channel video installation :
Pictures from group exhibition at International Documentary Exhibition of Bogotá-MIDBO, Pontificial University Javeriana of Bogotá, Colombia.
