New Neapolis - A Gyz La Rivière film - sync

Fratolish Hiang Perpeshki & Hi a Skeoyllyas Liv a Dhagrow feature in Gyz La Rivière’s film New Neapolis.

In these times of individualism, hollow populism and Brexit, artist Gyz La Rivière goes in search of collectivity. His film New Neapolis is a declaration of love for a new fictional European city that can arise when four harbour cities – Rotterdam, Liverpool, Naples and Marseille – forge an alliance. La Rivière shows how these cities are related – with their sailortowns, quays and alleys; migrants, workers and scallies; bombing and decay; poverty, friction and a lively informal economy. He also shows the frantic attempts to clean all of this up with urban renewal, gentrification and lots of soap. What can such an urban alliance teach us? Welcome to New Neapolis. For his film, La Rivière has worked as an idiosyncratic image archivist. Using new and existing images, he forges a story with which he sharpens our view of the world around us in unexpected ways.

Gwenno SaundersComment