Kouté vwa (Listen to the Voices)

Maxime Jean-Baptiste pays a moving tribute to his cousin Lucas Diomar, a young Guyanese DJ who was murdered at a birthday party over ten years ago. The film captures the mourning and rebuilding process of three people close to him : his nephew Melrick, his mother and his old friend Yannick, who returns to Guyana for the first time to attend a commemoration. Between sadness, anger and resilience, each of them exposes his or her fragility and doubts about Lucas’ heavy absence, while forcing themselves to begin the road to forgiveness. Through these three highly sensitive portraits, the director reflects on the persistence of violence in a territory marked by transatlantic slavery and colonisation, contrasting it with the Guianese forest : a peaceful, magical place that gives rise to some magnificent dreamlike, sensory sequences. Each shot of Kouté vwa (Listen to the voices in Creole) resonates like an echo of Lucas’s voice, a victim of a painful and violent collective history.