Off the Tunisian coast, a coroner examines the body of a young castaway.
Searching for truth, she questions herself.
What if he could talk? What did he see? Who was he?
Her questions mingle with the chorus of Mourning Mothers, who evoke memories and talk about their sons who appear in their dreams.
They tell of the last moments, the desolation that drove their sons to try the murderous crossing and ask for justice.
In the same night, from the same village, nine kids attempted the murderous crossing.
Only a survivor could tell the story of such a shipwreck.
Director's Biography
Bénédicte Liénard is originally from the Borinage region in Belgium. The success of her first documentary, “Têtes aux murs”, enabled her to make her first fiction film, “Une part du ciel”, which was selected at Cannes 2002 (Un certain regard). “D’arbres et de charbon” appears in her filmography as a need to think and make cinema over time and in artisanal way.
After the fiction film “Le Chant des hommes”, she worked with Mary Jiménez and directed “Sobre las brasas” and “By the name of Tania” in Peru (Berlinale 2019).
For theatre, she created “Tous les autres s’appellent Zéki” with asylum seekers and she questions the duty of burial with “Sortir du noir”.
“On la nomme la brûlure” is the film that continues this reflection.
She is currently preparing a hybrid film, “Fuga”, which will be shot in the Peruvian Amazon.
Born in Peru, Mary Jiménez studied architecture in Lima before pursuing film studies at the INSAS film school in Belgium. She has been teaching film directing in Brussels, Cuba and Switzerland. Mary is the artistic director of SoundImageCulture-SIC, a filmmaker’s laboratory in Brussels. Mary’s work includes films like “Du Verbe Aimer” (Forum Berlinale), “La Position du Lion Couché”, “Le Dictionnaire selon Marcus” et “Héros sans Visage”, all of which have been selected at numerous festivals worldwide. With Bénédicte Liénard, she has directed several films, “Le Chant des hommes”, “Sobre las Brasas”, “By the Name of Tania”, and collaborated in the theatre performance “Sortir du noir” and lately in the film “On la nomme la brûlure”. Together they prepare the shooting of “Fuga”.
