Vincent Moon & Priscilla Telmon: Hibridos Project
Vincent Moon & Priscilla Telmon: Hibridos Project
Vincent Moon is a french filmmaker who for the last decade has been shooting independent documentary films centered around music. His work includes the early project A Take Away Show, his latest full-length film People, and Hibridos, a profound exploration of spirituality and music in Brazil, which he developed together with Priscila Telmon. Delve into this incredibly rich and moving project with our selection of videos below.
In Hibridos we are given in-depth glimpses into everything from amazonian ceremonies and Candomble rituals, to Evangelical celebrations and many other kinds of spiritual customs in practice today in this diverse country. Moon & Telmon were granted unprecedented access and permitted to shoot video, capture sound, and be part of moments which are generally difficult to represent or describe.
Hibridos has been shared in film-format and as part of “Live Cinema” events where Moon and Telmon improvise in real time using material shot over the course of more than two years. In these performances, audio and video from their massive library become the instruments with which to create something new in response to each time and place where they present.
Moon achieves a delicate balance in his work, presenting intimate cultural phenomena in a way that is both respectful and deeply inspiring. I was fortunate enough to meet him a couple of times and experience one of his live performances, which was truly unique. It surprised me to hear him say afterwards that his cinema work is completely conditioned by music. He explained that he tries to translate what he feels in the music through the work of his camera, and it’s clear that something very special results from working this way.
I was also interested to learn of his decision not to participate in film festival competitions anymore. According to Moon, competition and the arts are two things that don’t really have much in common. Instead, all their films are available for viewing online under creative commons licenses. During 2020 Moon has been screening his new film People in private homes for small audiences in Paris and around France.
After exploring his expansive body of work and learning more about his process, it seems clear that Vincent Moon is creating a new kind of cinema. One embedded in the personal perspective, one that is more humble and human.
