An Urban Allegory (2024)

Interesting facts

An Urban Allegory is 2024 French short film co-written and co-directed by Alice Rohrwacher and JR based on Plato's Allegory of the cave, starring Lyna Khoudri, Naïm El Kaldaoui and Leos Carax. The film had its world premiere at the 81st Venice Film Festival in the Out of Competition (Fiction) section on 1 September 2024.

Production

Co-directed and co-written by Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher and French artist JR on their second collaboration after Omelia Contadina (2020), An Urban Allegory is based on Plato's Allegory of the cave and marks Naïm El Kaldaoui's first role as 7-year-old protagonist Jay.

The film was produced by Ad Vitam and Social Animals, co-produced by Arte France Cinéma with the participation of Arte France and the support of French fashion house Chanel, and features visual effects by the Paris-based branch of the British studio Moving Picture Company (MPC). The short film is connected to the collaborative art project Chiroptera, with the score being composed by Thomas Bangalter and choreographed by Damien Jalet.

The directors said about the film in a press statement released in August 2024:

What lies behind the daily movement of a city? Last winter, we met in Paris and began discussing the Allegory of the cave, as told in Plato's Republic. The myth imagines humanity living in chains, facing the back of a cave, and watching shadows move on the walls, thinking it is reality. We both work with images, which certainly can be illusions, but can also become instruments of struggle and liberation of thought.

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