Pharoah Fall is a poetic homage to jazz legend Pharoah Sanders on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Narrated by Charlotte Dos Santos, this film explores her personal journey with Pharoah Sanders’ music and spirituality.
She opens up about the concept of metamorphosis, the practice of surrendering and letting go, and the influence of nature nurturing her own world.
Fall is the season between seasons, a transitioning space. It is a space where opposites meet, a dance between gratitude and grief, the hiatus between life and death. This very tension seems to be the frame we are indefinitely called to endure - especially in a modern day context - in our lives, by finding ways to grasp the nourishing dimensions of life, as well as death. By embracing and honoring both for their fertile powers.
In that sense Pharoah Sanders' music is unique. It is music that has power to heal and reconstruct. It is music that has this ability to question the cyclical process of the body and its relation to time. It teaches us that life and history can be apprehended as circular and sonic constructs as opposed to linear and always progressing concepts developed in Western Modernism. This is a process that cannot be accelerated at will.
Pharoah’s music is a vessel for a universal message of peace, an inner balance as well as brotherhood over individualism - and thoroughly depicts the relentless motion of nature between chaos and harmony.
Director | Aurélien Bernard
Producer | Romain Bent
DP | François Ray
Editor and sound designer | Aloïs Champougny
Sound Engineer | Thomas Chouchan
Journalist | Clémentine Boulard
Camera Assistant | Julia Portanier
Sound Recording | Rémi Matthäi
Color Grading | Lydia Lopez
Titles | David Simon
Graphic Design | Maison C.C.
Musician | Julien Mezence
Location Supervisor | Sean Barclay