Roz (and Joshua)

Roz was separated from her son, Joshua, when he was seven months old. Twelve years have gone by and Roz is waiting with unshakeable faith for the moment when fate will reunite them. However, Roz, a municipal road sweeper, has been homeless since 1993. She lives in a pick-up van with her youngest infant, and Joshua’s return depends on her finding lodgings. A dense black-and-white short, Roz (and Joshua) swings between two rhythms: the sombre, descriptive movement of the images that reveal Roz’s daily routine, her hardships, her day-work in the streets, her nights in the truck, and the off-screen narrative, sometimes sung, sometimes spoken, at times reminiscent of prayer, at other times of the blues. Absent from the images, Joshua is omnipresent in this lament. (Yann Lardeau)