Another brick in the wall: Zaho Zay

PRISON: A picturesque hybrid documentary within a hopelessly overcrowded prison in Madagascar. Zaho Zay is as complex and richly layered as it is troubling and compelling. An Austria/France/Madagascar co-production from an Austrian male director and a French female filmmaker of Malagasy origin, this unusual hybrid is not quite doc, not quite fiction, neither shamelessly colonialist in its gaze, nor entirely free from the outsider’s POV. Taking its title from the roll call response («It’s me!») given by inmates in the real Madagascar prison where much of the film is set, the experimental project is also less focused on the men (and, towards the end, women) behind the proverbial bars than in the visual springboard their faces and bodies provide for the daydreamy narrative (which is accompanied by a lyrical voiceover, written by a French/Malagasy writer).

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