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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?
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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 Blogotheque,
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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
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in a different way,
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to film the music we love,
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the musicians we admired
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as much as possible
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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.
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From Grizzly Bear in the shower
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to Sigur Ros 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 the Arcade Fire in an elevator
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in the Olympiades
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to Beirut going down stairs in Brooklyn,
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from [??] 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 Montmarte
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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.
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We published all those things
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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
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we were making, the Take Away Shows,
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got quite successful,
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reaching millions of viewers.
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After a while, I got a bit "Mmmm,"
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I wanted to do something 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,
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sort of, that I had in mind.
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How could the use of new technologies
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and the road could fit together?
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How could I have my films in a bus
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crossing the Andes?
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So I went on a five-year travels
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around the globe.
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I started at the time in the [???] filming
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my music le bon 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.
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From the Tecnobrega 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
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with One Man Nation
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to Brazilian icon, Tom Zé, singing
on his rooftop in Sao 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 the restaurant in Tbilisi, Georgia,
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from the White Shoes,
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a great [??] band from Jakarta, Indonesia
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to Dakha Brakha, the revolutionary band
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from Kiev, Ukraine,
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from Tomi Lebrero
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and his band and his friends
in Buenos Aires, Argentina,
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to many other places
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and musicians around the world.
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My desire was to make it as a truck.
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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 just 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 truck.
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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
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going to give me
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a place to stay for the night.
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I give you a moment of cinema
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and you offer me a Capirinha.
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Well, or other drinks,
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depending on where you are.
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In Peru, they drink pisco sour.
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Oh, well, when I arrived in Peru, actually,
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I had no idea
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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
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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
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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,
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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
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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 under 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."
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It's a really important thing.
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(Applause)
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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 at their own culture,
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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
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in mind: 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 trends
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but find an equivalent, the [???], maybe,
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something in complete harmony
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with the people?
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That was, that is now,
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my new researches I'm making
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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 Aluk To Raja 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 an 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 name "Híbridos."
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I'm doing it with Priscilla Telmon of [East Reach?]
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on the new spiritualities all around the country.
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This is my quest, my own little quest of what I call
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experimental ethnography,
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trying to
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hybrid all those different genres,
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trying to regain itself in complexity.
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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.
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Muito obrigado.
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(Applause)
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Moderator: 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
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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?
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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 teaches 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.
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Moderator: 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 and etc.
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Otherwise, you just go in and
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capture 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?
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VM: My idea is that I think that
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as long as we don't cut,
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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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is 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 that's 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.
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Moderator: Tell me in a few words
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your new project, "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.
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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 [???]
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and trying to understand how people live together
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with spirituality nowadays.
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Moderator: The man who is going
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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?
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VM: I guess four years ago,
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four years in my first travel.
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Moderator: So it was one of your first
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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 and the rest of it
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in the place where he is from.
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Moderator: So let's introduce him.
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Who are we waiting for?
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VM: I'll just make it very short.
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It's a very great honor
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for me to welcome onstage one of the greatest
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Brazilian musicians of all time.
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Please welcome Nana Vasconcelos.
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Moderator: Nana Vasconcelos!
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(Applause)
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(Music)
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Nana Vasconcelos: Let's go to the jungle.
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(Applause)
Krystian Aparta
The English transcript was modified on 4/2/2015: at 01:28, "the Olympiades" was changed to "the Olympia."