The Ballad of Suzanne Cesaire

A post-biopic about Caribbean surrealist Suzanne Cesaire, deconstructing the process of bringing an actually-lived life to film. The film examines her relationship with her husband, French politician Aime Cesaire, and famed surrealist Andre Breton. Filmed on the grounds of a palm tree archive in South Florida, a small group of filmmakers and actors consider the "paradise" of historic and political memory. The film takes place primarily in the space of the film set itself where actors and crew confront the history of this writer in her youth, and then stage scenes from her life. The Ballad of Suzanne Cesaire is writer-director Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich's first feature and stars Cesar-award-winning actor Zita Hanrot and Motell Gyn Foster. Inspired by the structures of Cesaire's own writing, which often took a colonial convention and unraveled it, the film deconstructs the narrative period biopic genre, moving between a conventional cinema and deconstructed experimental scenes. With a soundtrack by singer Sabine McCalla, The Ballad of Suzanne Cesaire plants us firmly in the darkness and desire of its subject matter while acknowledging the impossibility of resuscitating a legacy partially lost to time.