QUITTER LES LIEUX directed by Emmanuel Parraud

*ELSEWHERE*—the fiction film selected for your wonderful festival, the 14th Indian Cine Film Festival (ICCF), which gives me the opportunity to be seen by a discerning and passionate audience far from home—tells the story of the defiant spirit and the vitality and joy of the "Maroons" of Réunion. These qualities continue to inspire the island's inhabitants to this day. Although I am from mainland France, I have been making all my films on this island for the past 15 years with the aim of fostering greater respect for the descendants of the enslaved people and indentured laborers from India who came here to work, and—by extension—of building better relationships between people of different cultures.

I am addressing open-minded, tolerant individuals who are curious about discovering other cultures and ways of life. I am quite experienced in my field. I have created four feature films and several short films, some of which have won awards. Two of my feature films—*Avant-Poste* and *Sac la Mort*—were screened at the Cannes Film Festival (ACID-Cannes selection). For this film, I was fortunate to work with a highly professional and dedicated crew—particularly the cinematography team—and with exceptionally talented non-professional actors, selected through a rigorous casting process and extensive rehearsals, as is my standard practice.

As I am also a producer, I would be very interested in connecting with Indian producers for an international co-production of my next film, which will be set across the countries of the Indian Ocean region, including India. Through a fictional narrative, the film will tell the story of the Comoros archipelago and its relationships with other nations in the Indian Ocean. It features strong, inventive characters who escape poverty by turning Western colonial exploitation methods to their own advantage. It will be a film celebrating a victory for a Global South nation!