Simone Rapisarda Casanova

HEGEL’S ANGEL

ZANJ HEGEL LA

Haiti/Canada/United States/Italy, 2018, 70′

Inspired by southern Haiti’s Vodou and Kanaval cosmologies, and co-written with the entire cast and crew, Zanj Hegel La (Hegel’s Angel), is a cinematic fable challenging the boundaries between fiction, ethnography and reverie. The film follows an inquisitive boy named Widley whose life, suspended between mundane activities and foreign myths, unfolds away from the turmoil of an upcoming presidential election. As the boy wanders through an evanescent countryside, running errands for his father and paying furtive visits to a local film editor, his searching eyes become a mirror for the exotic new spell sweeping his people from one empire to another.

Simone Rapisarda Casanova
Born in rural Sicily, used to be a computer scientist before becoming a filmmaker. His first feature, The Strawberry Tree, won accolades at many renowned festivals worldwide before being picked by Film Comment as one of the 50 Best Undistributed Films of 2012. His second feature, The Creation of Meaning, won him the Best Emerging Director Award at Locarno in 2014 and was the recipient of several other notable awards before receiving a weeklong theatrical release at the MoMA in 2015. Simone currently teaches film at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts in Vancouver, Canada.