CP/ 2023
︎︎︎ Dirty Salt ︎︎︎
12-minute colour film shot in 4K minutes, Cape Verde(- I have got salt on my fingers !
- This is what happen ifyou get to the dead
see.
- Water, I need some water !
- My friend Jenie said that’s exactly what
happened to her.
- Did we decide ?
- O yeah it’s included in the price.)
In a desert landscape well known to tour operators, European tourists on all-inclusive holidays are discovering the major tourist attraction in this African country: a salt lake.
I've been following one aspect of current tourism that
questions me. These groups are in a chosen passivity, with no spontaneous interactions and stay together according to the language they speak. They don't choose the activities they are going to do, they do not choose the places they visit: The hotel decides for them.
This film project explores how tourism operates as a commercial industry deeply tied to colonialism. The goal was to highlight its absurdity by developing a narrative structure that examines its connection to exoticism and the colonial imagination.
To do this, the filming took place at a specific tourist site: a former salt mine located in Cadver. Over three days, I filmed tourists, capturing their movements and interactions with the location. Each evening, back at my hotel, I rewrote the scenes based on the footage shot that day. The idea was to structure a simple yet striking narrative that would emphasize the absurd nature of the tourism system.
A key aspect of this work was the treatment of the characters. Rather than limiting myself to a purely documentary approach, I aimed to give the tourists a fictional dimension, transforming them into recurring and recognizable characters. Through the use of repetitive comedy and a humorous perspective, I shifted the critique away from the tourists’ behavior and toward the system that shapes them. This approach was especially important to me, as I wanted to avoid blaming these travelers—many of whom are part of low-cost tourism and are themselves products and victims of this industry. My goal was to film them with respect, carefully framing each shot to place them in a visual context imbued with empathy.
The film’s aesthetic is largely inspired by promotional tourism videos that sell the promise of an exotic and adventurous escape. I composed my shots like postcards, deliberately using the visual codes of tourism in order to subvert them. This stylistic choice was crucial in questioning our perception of landscapes and the narratives constructed around them by the tourism industry.
Ultimately, this project seeks to offer a critical yet playful perspective on contemporary tourism, examining its mechanisms and imagery through a cinematic approach that is both engaging and thought-provoking.
