At night but also in the darkness of the day, an explorer walks through the jungle of Borneo in search of orangutans. Carrying binoculars and a notebook, he observes and studies them, then draws them. As he explores, two stories are summoned up: a fable from Carolus Linnaeus's Systema Naturae and the testimony of the former chief animal caretaker at the Menagerie in the Jardin des Plantes, Paris. By bringing together Homo sapiens and Homo nocturnus (as Linnaeus called orangutans) in a synthetic jungle, the film sketches out a dreamlike meditation on the strange proximity that for centuries has shaped the relations between humans and great apes.
Judith Auffray was born in Paris in 1993. She studied painting and drawing at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Lyon then cinema at HEAD-Geneva. Her first feature film, A house (2020), shown in several festivals (such as Cinéma du réel, FID Marseille) and awarded at Ji.hlava IDFF and Bosifest, was released in cinemas in November 2021. She entered Le Fresnoy in 2020 where she made two films : 7:15-Blackbird (Cinéma du réel, Brive Film Festival, Côté Court) and Men of the night (San Sebastian IFF).
Cursus2015-2019 Bachelor Cinéma - Haute École d'Art et de Design de Genève
2012-2015 DNAP École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Lyon
2011-2012 atelier préparatoire aux écoles supérieures d'arts plastiques, Ateliers Hourdé, Paris
