The young French artist Neïl Beloufa examines in his films and videos the thin line between fiction and reality. Tonight and the People is his first full-length film.
In an imaginary Los Angeles a number of people - cowboys, a group of activists, three hippies, four teenagers and a couple of gangsters - are waiting for a large-scale event to take place. Neïl Beloufa works with inexperienced actors in an artificial setting. He strips everyday conversations about values and dreams, sweethearts and politics of their spontaneity and changes them – by using sitcom-style decors and lighting – into an alternative reality.
Beloufa attempts to create a drily comical hyper-reality by playing with teenage film, soap conventions and symbolic objects, like the red bandanna (which refers to cowboys or anarchists but also to the West coast gangster culture).
Beloufa raises the viewer’s awareness of the apparatus that is hidden behind TV productions with stereotype story lines. His work is a very layered composition which does not form a compelling, seamless entity, resulting in his constant balancing on the fascinating interface between cinema and art gallery.
In English
2013, 81min.
experimental fiction film
Writer/Director: Neïl Beloufa
Producer: Jean Des Forets
Production Company: Petit Film
