A bullfight in the South of France. White foam is flowing into the arena, blurring the view of animals and humans. Tourneur shows young men in the ring with a bull – their gestures are between archaic subjugation and modern dance. Image and sound, foreground and background, on-screen and off-screen combined in a highly artificial and surreal way. Up to the moment when the bull suddenly breaks through the presentation.

Tourneur

Named after its setting, the French river Vidourle, Yalda Afsah’s film documents a strange and subtly unnerving choreography, capturing a group of young men performing what could be a ritual, a spectacle, a game, or a fight. In their collective movements as well as individual moments of concentration, anticipation and occasional forlornness, the adrenalin-fuelled adolescent protagonists seem to embody the frailty of the human condition awaiting an environmental change, much like an unexpectedly forceful current in a river.