Procès d'un jeune poète - Philippe Van Cutsem

In 1964, the poet Joseph Brodsky, then aged twenty-four, was tried for what the Soviet regime called “social parasitism” and sentenced to five years of hard labor in the far north of Soviet Russia. The journalist Frida Vigdorova was present at the trial and discreetly took notes on its proceedings, despite the judge's prohibition. Her account, widely circulated in the USSR and also in the West, strongly mobilized the intelligentsia, which led to Brodsky's release after eighteen months of detention. Based on this document, the film revisits a historical episode that resonates strongly with the period we are currently experiencing, a period that has seen the widespread development of authoritarian regimes.

Philippe Van Cutsem is a filmmaker, visual artist, and teacher. After studying painting and drawing and attending the École de Recherches Graphiques, he broadened his field of activity to cinema, at the crossroads of documentary and visual arts. Several of his films, such as Nouveau monde, Le Récit de mon père, and Albert, berger, deal with issues related to memory, its transmission, and its impact on the present.