Noire, the little-known story of Claudette Colvin, an African-American who faced segregation in the 1950s, won the new prize for best immersive work on Thursday at the 77e Cannes film festival.
In Alabama, a segregationist state where she lived, “when the bus went down the main street, more and more white passengers got on and the driver asked to vacate the seats,” Claudette Colvin recalled in a videoconference with journalists in 2023.
“Two-three stations later, a policeman asked me what I was doing sitting there. I said I paid my way and that it was a constitutional right. I wanted more than anything to challenge him and I refused to get up. »
“This work, which perfectly merges technological innovation and historical memory, moved visitors to Cannes, just as it did at the Center Pompidou in Paris in 2023, during its first presentation to the public,” rejoiced in a press release. Laurent Le Bon, president of the Center Pompidou.
Circulating between a few walls, doors and benches, visitors rub shoulders with the holograms of Claudette as a teenager, those of members of her community, white people and segregation at all levels. They relive the bus scene, his arrest and his conviction in court.
“What an incredible adventure, a book turned immersive experience. “Take a deep breath, blow out, now you are black.” If someone had told me 10 years ago that this sentence would carry readers, spectators, and one day travel to the Cannes Film Festival…” commented the author Tania de Montaigne, at the origin of the artwork.
Eight immersive works were in the running for the first competition of this kind in Cannes, with a trophy awarded by an international jury made up of personalities from cinema and immersive art, during a specific closing ceremony.
The winners of the Cannes Film Festival will be revealed on Saturday evening, where the Palme d’Or award will also take place.