The Sparkle
- Cinema direct
- Masculinity
- Carnaval
- Excess
- Childhood
01/Synopsis
The Sparkle is a documentary, filmed in the tradition of direct cinema. The film allows the raw world of traveling fairground workers to reveal itself with sensitivity.
Kim and Billy work at carnivals. This summer, Kim procrastinates. He plans to leave this family of colleagues to devote himself to his passion, the search for precious stones. The layoff of Billy, his best friend, accelerates his disenchantment. We always dream of elsewhere
02/Intentions
Director’s statement
As a child, I spent my summers on rickety rides set up in parking lots. It always ended with my brother and me stripping our father of his money to get another stuffed animal. I loved those custom-made mini-cities. Every year, it was our ritual: escaping the apartment and heading into the ruckus. Our way of relaxing was to get whacked on the hips in roller coaster cars. As an adult, I saw something entirely different: loudmouths shouting at parents to pay more, workers trapped in a world of wonders. A certain tension settled in my mind. I became fascinated by the fairground workers: why do they work so hard to stage a world strictly reserved for children?
With this film, I want to present an inverted world: one where adults gasp in wonder, while children move through it with indifferent innocence… as if the fairground workers were making certain moments magical simply for themselves. Tirelessly, the fairground workers return to the carnival to reconnect with childhood. I portray this strange family of wanderers, people without ties who love each other modestly and express their affection through crude jokes.
04/Crédits
Isabelle Grignon-Francke
Patrick Francke-Sirois
Émile Desroches-Larouche
Jordan Choinière
Samuel Carrier
Anouk Deschênes
Emilou Johnson
Christophe Voyer
Steven Mercier
Welcome Aboard
03/Media
Talking about us
«The Sparkle, directed by Isabelle Grignon-Francke, is a film that celebrates ordinary moments of life in beautiful and contemplative shots. Through the simple story of a young adult experiencing a kind of disenchantment and wishing to accomplish his dreams, the filmmaker takes us on a cinematic and poetic journey.»
«This creates a productive tension between the utopian ideal of nomadism that characterizes the world of the carnival and the desire to escape the exhausting lifestyle that this ideal entails.»
«In one of the film’s most beautiful scenes, on a beach at dusk, bathed in bluish light, Kim, holding a lamp, searches like an adventurer for his precious stones. For a brief moment, he becomes the quiet hero of his own world—a secluded world made of details, silence, and poetry.»