The Season before Spring

A documentary by Marie Devautour

Synopsis

Once upon a time, in the great city of New Orleans, a storm came and destroyed millions of houses, leaving many people homeless, jobless, helpless.

Our story starts in this post-Katrina devastated landscape.

Six months after the disaster, after a long winter season, people are getting ready...to dance !

It's the season of Carnival, the season before spring.

Proteus, the narrator, tells us the story of Mardi Gras 2006 in New Orleans as experienced by tourists and locals, blacks and whites, riches and poors, children and seniors. Join the revelry and witness the greatest second-line ever in the city that care forgot.

 

Director's note

Did you know that it was possible to fall in love with a city?

My name is Marie Devautour, I am a young french filmmaker who fell in love with the great city of New Orleans.

I lived and studied there in 2005, the year before hurricane Katrina hit. I was deeply touched by the tragedy, and it was when I went back there to volunteer and gut a few houses around thanksgiving 2005 (I was a student at the New York Film Academy at that time), that I realised there was nothing else I could make a film about, at that moment of my life. I was going to focus on the rebuilding process, on the resilience of a severely wounded people, on the hope for a better future: that's why I documented the festivities of the Mardi Gras Carnival in february 2006.

The 'Season before Spring' is my first feature documentary. It's the product of one year of my passionate and dedicated work. It was originally my thesis film, but then the project got bigger, even though I worked alone for most of it.

New Orleans has come a long way since Mardi Gras 2006, and yet you will see that it's still very much a hot topic.

I hope you enjoy watching the film as much as I loved making it.

As they say down in the Big Easy: 'Let the good times roll',

                                                                 Marie Devautour