Ann Arbor Film Festival 2010

Russell’s feature-length debut consists of thirteen 10-minute shots, filmed primarily with a steadicam rig. The film follows two unidentified brothers (played by Benjen and Monie Pansa) as they journey from the outskirts of Paramaribo, Suriname through a busy city street, past an illegal gold mine, through the forest and a Maroon village to the Upper Suriname River. The brothers’ near wordless journey via foot, bus, and canoe, is a compressed echo of an epic voyage taken by their ancestors, who escaped slavery under Dutch rule, 300 years prior.

“In its cartographic portrayal of contemporary Saramaccan culture, Let Each One Go Where He May invites anachronism and myth-making to participate in the film’s daring conflation of history, its oscillations between re-enactment and record, its investigation of the gaze and cultural oppression and survival. Like a Rouchian ethno-fiction, the film leads the viewer not only on an extraordinary quest, but also into an inquiry on representation and the camera’s transformative powers.”

—Andrea Picard, Wavelengths, Toronto International Film Festival

Ben Russell (Chicago, IL) in attendance