La Jetée, The Fifth Shot

Few films have been held historically dearer than Chris Marker’s 1962 La Jetée, a minimalist masterpiece often grouped among the greatest and most influential of all. In her deeply personal and inventive new film La Jetée, The Fifth Shot, acclaimed director Dominique Cabrera uncovers a startling connection: Marker’s sci-fi photomontage may also be an inadvertent historical document of her own family. La Jetée was made the same year Algeria gained independence from French colonial rule, when hundreds of thousands of French people with roots in Algeria — including Cabrera’s family — fled to Paris via Orly Airport. Six decades later, Cabrera’s cousin becomes convinced that he appears in the film’s fifth image, standing with his parents as they welcome relatives at the airport. What follows is a thrilling and tender detective story intertwining personal history, postcolonial memory, and the history of cinema itself. Winner of Best Film at DOK Leipzig Film Festival.