Following the acclaimed Sun Dog (2020), this is the second film by Dorian Nour Jespers, a young Belgian filmmaker with a certain flair for the absurd. In Loynes — which premiered at Cannes’ Quinzaine des Cinéastes — a corpse goes on trial in 19th-century Liverpool.
A nameless body with no known past is put on trial before a boisterous court in nineteenth-century Liverpool. Kafkaesque at its core, Dorian Jespers’ second short film proposes – among other layers – a reflection on time itself. The accused body is lifeless, yet “to be dead does not mean not to be”: a ghost is created, crossing years and spaces to prevent its own story from being erased. Strange, absurd, and ironic, Loynes is a project that unfolded over many years, evolving from a feature film into a video installation. In its final form, the film brings together drone images and some striking VFX, along with a camera inside the courtroom that seems perpetually searching for something, perhaps guilty, clues, or a voice capable of explaining what is taking place there. It is also a mirror of a society endlessly seeking itself, haunted by the ghosts of its own past. (Pedro Gonçalves Ribeiro)
