LOGLINE

Jehan and Marie-Claire Alain awaken from a long slumber to explore their past and legacies

SYNOPSIS

The ghosts of historical French musicians Jehan Alain and Marie-Claire awake from their slumber and journey to revisit the pipe organ built by their father in an attempt to relive their past memories. Unforeseen complications hinder their voyage, but a determined Marie-Claire finds just what she needs to move on.

ARTISTIC STATEMENT

The film opens with a return of ghosts from the dead, but explores the idea of returning in other ways, most significantly that of returning to one’s past through sound and space. My lead characters, historical musicians Jehan and Marie-Claire Alain, contribute unique perspectives on loss and music as their lives were shaped by both. I want my film to be an experience of returning for the audience and its characters together. I set my film in the actual geographies where some of the Alain’s (both actual and fictional versions) most painful and formative memories happened in order to show that we live in the same continuous world as they did; that just as we listen to the music they played and composed perhaps in some way we also inherit the memories in our shared landscapes. Filming Le Retour on location brings the audience into the experience of revisiting that the characters are undergoing. In this light it was important to me that we film the final scene at the actual organ that the real Marie-Claire played on in her life in order to connect the image to the actual historic person that the character is based on. We filmed the ghosts of Jehan and Marie-Claire coming back from the dead in a naturalistic style in order to de-emphasize the supernatural and instead focus on the dynamic relationship between characters. This helped bring them down to earth and it also created humor by contrasting the gravity of their return to the dead with the sweetness of two siblings catching up after years apart. We punctuated the battle scene and the final organ scene expressionistically in order to create emotional experiences of memory – each of those scenes are the apex of Jehan’s and Marie-Claire’s journey in the film. When Jehan’s memory becomes painful in the story he tells Marie-Claire, the shots become subjective for the first time. The sound design in these scenes will be less realistic, but more musical inspired by the fact that the characters whose memories these scenes are attached to are musicians of a highly acoustic instrument. I am continuing to shape environmental sounds to a musical end in the scene where Jean discovers where he and Marie-Claire have arrived based on the field sounds around them in Saumur. This moment is a turning point in the film, marked by both aural and visual language. My film is a story of musicians returning to places years after their memories took place in order to move on - revisiting in order to be released. To this end, our sound design blurs the environmental with the subjective. Our shot list, staging, and choreography support the characters moving through the spaces they are in as if in a dance with their environment. Using sound and image in these ways, for each major scene I sculpted the character arc in relation to the location to create a journey beginning with the character’s entrance to their struggle and finally their release.

KEY CREW

Sammi Massey - Director/Writer

Sammi Massey is a screenwriter and director from Washington, D.C. currently based out of Paris and New York. After studying classics and religion and working as a journalist in Portland, Sammi received her MFA in Directing from Columbia University. She is currently completing post-production on a short film in Paris, with sights set on both documentary and experimental fiction projects.

Mackenzie Lyle - Producer

Mackenzie Lyle is a Producer from Los Angeles, California. After obtaining her Economics B.A. degree from Syracuse University, she received her MFA in Creative Producing from Columbia University in 2020. During her career at Columbia, she produced short films in New Mexico, New York, France, Switzerland, Italy, and Austria, giving her experience in tax credits, co-productions, and government grants. She is currently completing post production on a short film she produced in Paris, Le Retour de Jehan Alain, and plans on developing, producing, and distributing features in the near future.

Paul Maple Carpenter - Director of Photography

Paul Maple Carpenter grew up in the state of Minnesota, where he first developed an interest in photography, and then film. After living and working in Paris, he received his Master of Fine Arts degree in Directing from Columbia University’s Film program in 2018. Today he lives in New York, and in addition to writing and directing his own projects works as an assistant director and director of photography for productions from around the world.