Our February Video of the Month is ZION (2022), by brand-new Vtape artist Jard Lerebours!
About this work, Jard says, “Black people have always practiced world-building, a tool in our fixation on imagining and venturing towards collective liberation. ZION is a new take on the Rastafarian concept of Zion, the great escape from Babylon and its oppressive structures. I envision ZION as inextricably tied to the Buddhist concept of nirvana, the release from the cycle of death and rebirth. ZION captures simplistic and mundane moments of Black joy that seek to subvert the forces against us.”
February is Black History Month/African Heritage Month in Canada!
Jard Lerebours (He/They) is a NY-based Queer-Black magician in the tradition of Djibril Diop Mambéty. Their practice straddles the worlds of autofiction, cinema and video art. Jard approaches filmmaking as a conversation between friends and family guided by their communal West Indian upbringing. He is an active member of the Meerkat Media Artist Collective and the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective.
Jard’s film work includes the Babylon Red Trilogy, which consists of the short films Pandrog, Coconut and ZION. The trilogy explores gender, masculinity, Rastafarianism, Buddhism, and notions of home. His films have been showcased internationally by Atlanta Film Festival, New York African Film Festival, Third Horizon, Film Diary NYC, Indie Memphis Film Festival, London Short Film Festival and Uppsala International Short Film Festival.
Jard’s written work has been published in Office Magazine, Forgotten Lands, Crater Magazine, 032C, Fortunately Mag and AFM. He is currently in development for One For My Baby, a romantic comedy short about two contestants falling in love at a James Baldwin look-alike competition.
Image credit, home page: ZION, by Jard Lerebours (2022)