The film is like a message in a bottle dropped in the ocean in hopes that Didier will find it.
2013, 12 min., fiction/documentary hybrid, Northwest Filmmakers Festival, 2013 ; Festival International des Films de Femmes, 2014, Paris ; Pantin Côté-Court, Paris, 2014 ; Kolkata (India) Film Festival, 2015 ; Ciel (Independent Cinema on TV),
Edited from rushes shot on half-inch video in 1976 that were lost for 37 years, then found in a deteriorated condition in a moldy basement in Portland, Oregon, USA. The film is about the relationship between Penny, an American who is giving English lessons, and Didier, a little French boy who has come to Portland to spend the summer with his grandmother and uncle.
Monté des rushes tournés en demi-pouce magnétique en 1976, perdus pendant 37 ans, puis retrouvés dans un état déplorable dans un sous-sol moisi à Portland, Oregon, USA. Le film raconte les relations entre Penny, une Américaine qui donne des leçons d’anglais, et Didier, un petit Français venu à Portland pour passer l’été avec sa grand-mère et son oncle. Le film est comme un message fourré dans une bouteille, puis jetée dans la mer avec l’espoir que Didier la retrouve.
From The Metrograph:
A short film about the summer Allen taught English to a little boy with an apparent simplicity that hides a surprising density. The Didier Connection took 37 years to complete, its rushes lost and then found, and the result is crisp, refreshing, optimistic, even seductive, like early Truffaut. Submerged in the narrative momentum is a poignant longing for a life and time that can be experienced in memory but no longer touched, visible only through the unreliable telephoto lens of time.
