WEBVTT

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Vincent Moon: How can we use computers,

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cameras, microphones to represent the world

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in an alternative way,

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as much as possible?

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How, maybe, is it possible to use the Internet

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to create a new form of cinema?

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And actually, why do we record?

NOTE Paragraph

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Well, it is with such simple questions in mind

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that I started to make films 10 years ago,

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first with a friend, Christophe Abric.

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He had a website, La Blogothèque,

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dedicated to independent music.

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We were crazy about music.

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We wanted to represent 
music in a different way,

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to film the music we love,
the musicians we admired,

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as much as possible, far 
from the music industry

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and far from the cliches attached to it.

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We started to publish every week

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sessions on the Internet.

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We are going to see a few extracts now.

NOTE Paragraph

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From Grizzly Bear in the shower

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to Sigur Ros playing in a Parisian cafe.

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From Phoenix playing by the Eiffel Tower

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to Tom Jones in his 
hotel room in New York.

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From Arcade Fire in an elevator

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in the Olympia

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to Beirut going down
a staircase in Brooklyn.

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From R.E.M. in a car

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to The National around a table at night

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in the south of France.

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From Bon Iver playing with some friends

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in an apartment in Montmartre

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to Yeasayer having a long night,

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and many, many, many more

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unknown or very famous bands.

NOTE Paragraph

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We published all those films

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for free on the Internet,

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and we wanted to share

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all those films and represent music

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in a different way.

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We wanted to create 
another type of intimacy

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using all those new technologies.

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At the time, 10 years ago actually,

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there was no such project on the Internet,

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and I guess that's why the project we 
were making, the Take Away Shows,

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got quite successful,

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reaching millions of viewers.

NOTE Paragraph

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After a while, I got a bit —

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I wanted to go somewhere else.

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I felt the need to travel and
to discover some other music,

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to explore the world,

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going to other corners,

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and actually it was also

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this idea of nomadic cinema,
sort of, that I had in mind.

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How could the use of new technologies 
and the road fit together?

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How could I edit my films in a bus

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crossing the Andes?

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So I went on five-year travels

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around the globe.

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I started at the time in the digital film 
and music label collection Petites Planètes,

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which was also an homage to
French filmmaker Chris Marker.

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We're going to see now a few more extracts

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of those new films.

NOTE Paragraph

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From the tecno brega diva of
northern Brazil, Gaby Amarantos

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to a female ensemble in Chechnya.

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From experimental electronic music 
in Singapore with One Man Nation

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to Brazilian icon Tom Zé singing
on his rooftop in São Paolo.

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From The Bambir, the great 
rock band from Armenia

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to some traditional songs

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in a restaurant in Tbilisi, Georgia.

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From White Shoes, a great retro 
pop band from Jakarta, Indonesia

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to DakhaBrakha, the revolutionary 
band from Kiev, Ukraine.

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From Tomi Lebrero

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and his bandoneon and his friends
in Buenos Aires, Argentina,

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to many other places

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and musicians around the world.

NOTE Paragraph

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My desire was to make it as a trek.

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To do all those films,

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it would have been impossible

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with a big company behind me,

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with a structure or anything.

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I was traveling alone with a backpack —

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computer, camera, microphones in it.

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Alone, actually, but 
just with local people,

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meeting my team, which was absolutely not

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professional people, on the spot there,

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going from one place to another

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and to make cinema as a trek.

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I really believed that cinema could be

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this very simple thing:

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I want to make a film and you're going 
to give me a place to stay for the night.

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I give you a moment of cinema
and you offer me a capirinha.

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Well, or other drinks,

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depending on where you are.

NOTE Paragraph

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In Peru, they drink pisco sour.

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Well, when I arrived in Peru, actually,

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I had no idea about what I would do there.

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And I just had one phone number, actually,

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of one person.

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Three months later,

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after traveling all around the 
country, I had recorded 33 films,

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only with the help of local people,

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only with the help of people

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that I was asking all the 
time the same question:

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What is important to record here today?

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By living in such a way,

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by working without any structure,

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I was able to react to the moment

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and to decide, oh, this is 
important to make now.

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This is important to 
record that whole person.

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This is important to create this exchange.

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When I went to Chechnya,

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the first person I met

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looked at me and was like,

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"What are you doing here?

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Are you a journalist? NGO? Politics?

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What kind of problems 
are you going to study?"

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Well, I was there to research

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on Sufi rituals in Chechnya, actually —

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incredible culture of Sufism in Chechnya,

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which is absolutely unknown 
outside of the region.

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As soon as people understood

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that I would give them those films —

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I would publish them online for free
under a Creative Commons license,

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but I would also really 
give them to the people

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and I would let them do 
what they want with it.

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I just want to represent 
them in a beautiful light.

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I just want to portray them in a way that

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their grandchildren are going
to look at their grandfather,

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and they're going to be like,

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"Whoa, my grandfather is as 
cool as Beyoncé." (Laughter)

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It's a really important thing.

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(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

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It's really important,

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because that's the way

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people are going to look differently at 
their own culture, at their own land.

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They're going to think about it differently.

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It may be a way to maintain 
a certain diversity.

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Why you will record?

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Hmm. There's a really good quote

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by American thinker Hakim Bey

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which says, "Every recording

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is a tombstone of a live performance."

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It's a really good 
sentence to keep in mind

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nowadays in an era saturated by images.

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What's the point of that?

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Where do we go with it?

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I was researching. I was still 
keeping this idea in mind:

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What's the point?

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I was researching on music, trying to pull,

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trying to get closer to a certain origin of it.

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Where is this all coming from?

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I am French. I had no idea about

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what I would discover, 
which is a very simple thing:

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Everything was sacred, at first,

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and music was spiritual healing.

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How could I use my camera,

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my little tool, to get closer

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and maybe not only capture the trance

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but find an equivalent, 
a cine-trance, maybe,

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something in complete harmony

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with the people?

NOTE Paragraph

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That is now my new research I'm doing

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on spirituality, on new 
spirits around the world.

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Maybe a few more extracts now.

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From the Tana Toraja 
funeral ritual in Indonesia

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to an Easter ceremony 
in the north of Ethiopia.

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From jathilan, a popular trance ritual

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on the island of Java,

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to Umbanda in the north of Brazil.

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The Sufi rituals of Chechnya

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to a mass in the holiest 
church of Armenia.

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Some Sufi songs in Harar,

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the holy city of Ethiopia,

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to an ayahuasca ceremony

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deep in the Amazon of 
Peru with the Shipibo.

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Then to my new project, 
the one I'm doing now

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here in Brazil, named "Híbridos."

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I'm doing it with Priscilla Telmon.

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It's research on the new 
spiritualities all around the country.

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This is my quest, my own little quest 
of what I call experimental ethnography,

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trying to hybrid all 
those different genres,

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trying to regain a certain complexity.

NOTE Paragraph

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Why do we record?

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I was still there.

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I really believe cinema teaches us to see.

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The way we show the world

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is going to change the 
way we see this world,

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and we live in a moment where the mass media

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are doing a terrible, terrible job

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at representing the world:

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violence, extremists,

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only spectacular events,

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only simplifications of everyday life.

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I think we are recording

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to regain a certain complexity.

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To reinvent life today,

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we have to make new forms of images.

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And it's very simple.

NOTE Paragraph

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Muito obrigado.

NOTE Paragraph

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(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

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Bruno Giussani: Vincent, Vincent, Vincent.

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Merci. We have to prepare for
the following performance,

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and I have a question for you,
and the question is this:

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You show up in places like the 
ones you just have shown us,

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and you are carrying a camera

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and I assume that you are welcome

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but you are not always absolutely welcome.

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You walk into sacred rituals,

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private moments in a village, a town,

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a group of people.

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How do you break the barrier

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when you show up with a lens?

NOTE Paragraph

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VM: I think you break it with your body,

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more than with your knowledge.

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That's what it taught me to travel,

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to trust the memory of the body

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more than the memory of the brain.

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The respect is stepping forward,

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not stepping backward, and I really think that

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by engaging your body in the
moment, in the ceremony,

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in the places, people welcome you

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and understand your energy.

NOTE Paragraph

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BG: You told me that most of the videos

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you have made are 
actually one single shot.

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You don't do much editing.

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I mean, you edited the ones for us

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at the beginning of the sessions
because of the length, etc.

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Otherwise, you just go in and capture

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whatever happens in front of your eyes

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without much planning, and so is that the case?

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It's correct?

NOTE Paragraph

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VM: My idea is that I think that

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as long as we don't cut, in a way,

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as long as we let the viewer watch,

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more and more viewers 
are going to feel closer,

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are going to get closer to the moment,

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to that moment and to that place.

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I really think of that as a matter 
of respecting the viewer,

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to not cut all the time from one place to another,

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to just let the time go.

NOTE Paragraph

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BG: Tell me in a few words 
about your new project,

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"Híbridos," here in Brazil.

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Just before coming to 
TEDGlobal, you have actually

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been traveling around 
the country for that.

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Tell us a couple of things.

NOTE Paragraph

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VM: "Híbridos" is — 
I really believe Brazil,

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far from the cliches, is the greatest
religious country in the world,

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the greatest country 
in terms of spirituality

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and in experimentations in spiritualities.

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And it's a big project I'm 
doing over this year,

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which is researching in very
different regions of Brazil,

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in very different forms of cults,

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and trying to understand 
how people live together

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with spirituality nowadays.

NOTE Paragraph

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BG: The man who is going to 
appear onstage momentarily,

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and Vincent's going to introduce him,

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is one of the subjects of 
one of his past videos.

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When did you do a video with him?

NOTE Paragraph

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VM: I guess four years ago,

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four years in my first travel.

NOTE Paragraph

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BG: So it was one of 
your first ones in Brazil.

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VM: It was amongst the 
first ones in Brazil, yeah.

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I shot the film in Recife,

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in the place where he is from.

NOTE Paragraph

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BG: So let's introduce him. 
Who are we waiting for?

NOTE Paragraph

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VM: I'll just make it very short.

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It's a very great honor for 
me to welcome onstage

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one of the greatest Brazilian 
musicians of all time.

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Please welcome Naná Vasconcelos.

NOTE Paragraph

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BG: Naná Vasconcelos!

NOTE Paragraph

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(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

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(Music)

NOTE Paragraph

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Naná Vasconcelos: Let's go to the jungle.

NOTE Paragraph

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(Applause)