Jack

Emile Zile’s short digital video Jack focuses on a figure either lost in, or purposely drifting through, a nondescript, semi-industrial place. The film was developed after Zile met a dancer named Jack while running a performance workshop. Part portrait and part initiated event, the film shows Jack responding to spatial environments around Footscray, a suburb of Melbourne, through a series of vocalized sound effects, bodily interventions and imaginary scenarios. The location could be almost anywhere: Queens in New York or Salford in Manchester. Emerging from a twilight zone, the figure we follow is similarly ubiquitous: a disenfranchised youth, a wanderer, a young and listless man. This figure is feared the world over for his seemingly wanton disregard for systems, rules and consequences. Of course the reality here is more unruly, and possibly too complex for simple narratives. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)