Promotion : Michael Snow
Producer : Le Fresnoy
Music : Amaury Rémusat
Artistic advisor : Patrick Corillon
Genre : documentary / experimental / video art
Themes : suburbs, United States, Miami, afro-américain, rapper, ghetto, architecture, orientalism, history
Synopsis : Opa-Locka is a suburb surrounding Miami, FL. It was built in 1926 by Glenn Curtiss a major aviation pioneer and business tycoon. The city has been thematically designed in an orientalist style. Indeed, the architect took its inspiration in the silent movie « The Thief of Bagdad » shot in 1924 and the film was itself inspired by the Arabian Nights tales. The city has grown up and now the widely majority afro american community’s concerns are far from those XXth century fantasies. Far away from the time the city was a white and upper middle class suburb, the current citizens have to face extreme social conditions. The rap artist Brisco, originating from Opa-Locka , tells about those social issues in this music. But in each and every time of this city, Opa-Locka’s figures worked on building an ideal image to promote, market and develop this community. The film depicts all the visions, facets, representations and surfaces that the city shows.
This film recounts the History of a place inspired by a myth, with no true History when it was built. « Opa-Locka will be Beautiful » uses documentary materials to create a kind of tale : it tells about a faraway place and its heroes, adventures, hopes... This « documentary tale » evokes the Arabian Nights theme wich inspired the creation of the city of Opa-Locka. To deal with a city built from a fiction, I wanted to be didactic using a narrative style. I wanted to give a lot of informations but also leave space for some fantasy or daydreaming. In this film we visit the city as we discover the visions that allowed its creation, the visions that led its history, the visions that its future is based on. Curtiss, the city creator, envisioned an exotic paradise looking like the One and Thousand Nights Tales and now local politics are dreaming about a multicultural community freed from drug and violence issues.
Armand Morin
Born in Nevers (France) in 1984. Lives and work in LilleArmand Morin has been graduated for the Nantes School of Fine Arts in 2007. Its work deals with the world of leisure, linked to architecture and landscape, and it focuses on all the forms generated by the leisure and entertainment industry. In 2008, Armand Morin's sculptures and videos received the City of Nantes Fine Arts award. In 2009, the Nantes School of Fine Arts invited him in its post-graduation program and proposed him to continue his researches in Miami for one year. Armand Morin shot two videos there: "Pardon our Dust" and "the Spanish Monastery" that focus on Miami's relation to its territory and european culture samples visible in its architecture. From October 2011, he's doing the post-graduation program at Le Fresnoy, Studio National des Arts Contemporains, in North of France and he shot in 2011 "Opa-Locka will be beautiful", a documentary tale about a Miami's suburb built in a Arabian Nights tales theme. |
Armand Morin
