A multifaceted, unique and beautiful curation of both humanism and naturism, Déjà Nu is a genre-bending audiovisual poem directed by Rolf Hellat, undertaken with the express desire of seeking out collaborations with creative and inspiring people from North and West Africa. Describing the project as something to “become shared rather than imposed”, Hellat has harnessed his past experiences of artistic creation in order to craft a combination of documentary, poem, artistry and everything in-between. Taking an unprecedented approach to storytelling, Déjà Nu comprises various sequences – all differing in style, content and meaning – that tell the story of each contributor’s heritage, culture and body whilst simultaneously forming a whole that is all the richer for this confluence of parts. To accompany Déjà Nu’s premiere today, join Hellat and DN as we discuss his entrancing experimental/documentary/music video hybrid short, where we discover what ignited his filmic cycling journey from Switzerland, his process for forging meaningful collaborations along the way, and how ‘the body’ became a central tenet of Déjà Nu.
I’m aware that you don’t view Déjà Nu as a traditional director authored piece, with your protagonists’ contributions being equally as important as your own. How therefore did you come to be working with these collaborators and could you provide an insight into how you worked with each of them to create their specific element of the film within your non-hierarchical production structure?
I met all the collaborators of Déjà Nu during a seven-month bicycle journey from Zurich to Abidjan. These encounters weren’t planned – they emerged from shared conversations, meals, silences. We spoke about life, about loss, about transformation. And at some point, when trust had settled, we decided to make a scene together. Just a moment, developed in dialogue, grounded in mutual curiosity.
With Laetitia Ky, for instance, the menstrual blood painting scene grew out of a conversation about bodily autonomy and shame. She spoke about the long road of reclaiming her body from the taboos around menstruation. The idea to paint with menstrual blood wasn’t staged for effect – it surfaced naturally, as a reflection of her audacious spirit. A provocation, yes, but also an affirmation. Jean-Luc Yonhite, the protagonist in the homeless sequence, I met in a small café. We connected immediately, two strangers speaking with unusual honesty. He told me he had lost everything – his home, family, and friends during a prison sentence. We decided to share his real experience in the form of a poem, based on the Nina Simone song Ain’t Got No – I Got Life, which resonated deeply with him.
And at some point, when trust had settled, we decided to make a scene together. Just a moment, developed in dialogue, grounded in mutual curiosity.
We shot both of these scenes with just the two of us present – no sound recordist, no lighting, no crew. I believe this contributed significantly to an equal and trustful collaboration. Still, I hesitate to call the process “non-hierarchical.” Filmmaking always involves asymmetries – holding the camera is a form of power, just as standing in front of it can be. But perhaps it’s more about how we hold that power. What matters to me is that both sides bring a conscious effort to disrupt the usual dynamics, to let authorship drift, to let the film become something shared rather than imposed.
The body, or rather different moments when the protagonists value the body, as well as the ephemeral nature of our limited time within our bodies, is a unifying concept here. Was that a directive you entered each of these collaborations with ahead of time or a theme you discovered later? Could you please expand on how this presents across the different scenes?
I’m happy that you read the film in that way. When I first set off on my journey, I had no clear concept in mind. Just a feeling. It wasn’t until two or three months in, somewhere between solitude and flow, that a thread began to reveal itself. It came from my body – its fatigue, its strength, its vulnerability. And from that, an intuition: that this film might revolve around the body, its limits, its spirit, and its inevitable fading. In some of the collaborations that followed, I shared this intention: to make a film about the body, the spirit, and the mind. But only after the filming did it become fully evident – each scene, in its own way, was speaking of the body and its transience. With Sylvia Ouattara, for instance – the dancer in the hall of dust, we agreed she would dance until her body gave out. No “cut” at the climax. Instead, we stayed with her through the fall, through the decline in strength that followed. Exhaustion became its own kind of poetry. Let me bring Sylvia into this:
Sylvia Ouattara: The idea of dancing until exhaustion was a bit frightening, because I didn’t know how I would react. But it also sparked deep curiosity. In the end, it became about translating the beauty of the thought of death. As a believer, I feel this: I am dust, and I will return to dust — but not without having fulfilled the reason why this dust took shape. Stardust, to me, is how I – as an Ivorian woman – am meant to shine ✨ on earth.
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In the scene with the Kumpo – the straw creature – we encounter the body not just as vessel, but as mystery. In Diola belief, the Kumpo isn’t human. It’s something older, more elemental. It walks among us, reminding us that the soul exists not only within humans but in animals, plants, rivers, and stars. Younouss Sadio, the collaborator for this scene, expressed it like this:
Younouss Sadio: The Kumpo is sacred. It approaches people to help them. It’s not a human, but a spirit, a being, a creature. It has existed for countless generations. There are things we can’t see. How can we really explain the coming of human beings? What makes us alive? Whether the soul exists or not – I don’t really know. So I choose to believe it does. Because that belief helps me do good for others.
In both of these scenes – and really, throughout Déjà Nu – the body is not just a surface. It’s a question. A form of presence that’s constantly slipping away even as it glows. For deeper insights into each scene, you can find the full conversations with the protagonists here.
In the end, the film is a hybrid in every sense – between intention and coincidence, structure and spontaneity. There’s no single rule running through it, no fixed logic.
This is a film which very intentionally is a cross-border production being created by people from Senegal, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire and Switzerland. What dictated your creative journey and the stops you made along the way? And what parts were intentional vs fortuitous incidents, such as the dancing petals tornado?
What shaped the creative journey wasn’t a script – it was a longing. At first, I thought I wanted to learn something from myself. To test what happens when you’re alone, when you’re vulnerable, when you remove the structures that usually hold your life together. But quite soon, that solitude gave way to something else: a deep sense of connection. I began learning not from within, but from those I met along the way. As someone who grew up in Switzerland, I’ve come to realize how deeply my reception or imagination has been shaped by North American culture – its cinema, its music, its modes of storytelling. And yet, West Africa, so much closer geographically, remained distant to me for so long. When it did enter my awareness, it often came filtered through stereotypical or Eurocentric lenses. This film was, in part, a step toward unlearning those inherited views. I wanted to challenge my own gaze – to ask, quietly and honestly, where traces of exoticism might still linger in me, and how to let them go.
Some moments in the film emerged as pure serendipity. The dancing petals, just a passing breeze, a minor miracle. But others were carefully sculpted. The Kumpo scene took a little time to prepare. We filmed it around fifteen times, exploring different textures. The dance in the hall was also planned, a choreography with induced dust. Then again, the scene of people dancing in the streets at night – that was unplanned, an eruption of joy after Senegal won the Africa Cup. I had never witnessed such collective euphoria. We spoke with the dancers afterwards, and they gave their blessing for the footage. Sometimes, it felt right to plan, sometimes not. In the end, the film is a hybrid in every sense – between intention and coincidence, structure and spontaneity. There’s no single rule running through it, no fixed logic. Only the sense that the journey itself was a kind of co-authorship, shaped by instinct, encounter, and the mystery of what unfolds when you loosen your grip.
As an opener the Kumpo is absolutely captivating. It’s thought-provoking, ambiguous and almost spiritual and something that had my mind racing as to its meaning, the practical techniques of its creation and the filming of that scene. Could you please demystify that for us?
I understand the impulse to demystify. I had it too, the first time I saw the Kumpo – this swirling figure of straw, alive and ungraspable. I was stunned. And I had questions. So I turned to Younouss, the man from the village with whom I collaborated, and asked: “How? Who is doing this?” He looked at me and said, “The question is not who. Because it is not a human being.” That stayed with me. From the beginning, our agreement was not to unravel the myth, but to live inside it. To let the mystery breathe. In the film too, we chose not to explain. Just as the soul is not something we solve, but something we feel. So no – I can’t demystify the Kumpo. And I wouldn’t want to. It’s a beautiful secret that deserves to remain intact.
But let me offer some context, in Younouss’ own words: “The Kumpo is a traditional entity from the mythology of the Diola people in Casamance, Senegal. It approaches people to help them, to strengthen the community in which it appears – whether it’s to bless a rice harvest or a wedding, or to bring reconciliation during a dispute. The Kumpo is a refuge for humans.” For those curious to hear Younouss speak to the Kumpo, here’s a link.
As for the filming: we captured the scene at 200 frames per second. In real time, the Kumpo’s spin and the movement of the camera were eight times faster. That stretch of time – slowed yet still charged with energy – evoked something liminal for us. It gave the Kumpo a weightless presence, like a spirit negotiating its own gravity. That sense of transcendence was not added in post – it was embedded in the way we watched.
I’m interested to know what kit you had to capture everything, especially as your mode of travel was a bicycle. Did your collaborators augment that set up at all? How long was the production journey of Déjà Nu?
I worked with a Sony FX6 paired with a 24–70mm f/2.8 Sony zoom lens. It lived, snug and secure, in a small padded bag strapped to the frame of the bike. Soundwise, I used a semi-directional Sennheiser microphone, four lavaliers from Voice Technologies, and four Rode GO wireless transmitters. I added an XLR adapter that allowed me to run four channels of audio directly into the camera. There was no lighting equipment. I worked entirely with natural light. When I could, I would scout a location in advance – not just for visual aesthetics, but to understand how the light moved, where it fell, and how the protagonist’s presence might align with it.
My collaborators didn’t augment the technical setup – it remained minimal and mobile throughout. That restriction, in retrospect, became a form of creative clarity. There’s a certain intimacy that arises when you strip things back. The production journey took seven months on the road. Post-production stretched over twelve months – time needed not just to edit, but to listen and reframe.
Sound, both as music and audio design are equally weighty elements alongside the visuals in this film – from the naturalistic atmosphere of the opening to the digital morphing of the scream or the slowing and reversing of music elsewhere. What was your process for building these rich auditory components of the film?
I’m glad you experienced the sound not merely as an accompaniment, but as something that sometimes leads. My field of activity is also in sound art as part of the duo Oszilot, together with Luc Gut, so sound is never an afterthought. It’s a terrain I begin to explore from the very first edit. While assembling the footage, I begin gathering sonic fragments – snatches of music, textural recordings, atmospheric noise, even deliberately ‘wrong’ sounds. I spend time with these materials, layering, distorting, discarding. Often the process produces nothing but trash. But sometimes, something breaks through – like a scream that bends into another shape.
Moments of contrast – naturalistic and highly designed, intimate and exuberant, silence and ecstasy – allowed the film to breathe in unexpected ways.
The idea of slowing down was already embedded in the shooting. So it made sense that time would stretch in the sound as well. That deceleration didn’t just affect pacing – it altered my perception while editing. The reversed piece of music you hear in the petal whirlwind began as a bright and joyful track. Played backwards, it became something else entirely: poetic, veiled, enigmatic. In general, we found that friction worked. Moments of contrast – naturalistic and highly designed, intimate and exuberant, silence and ecstasy – allowed the film to breathe in unexpected ways. And of course, this was not a solo composition. Sound designer Oscar Van Hoogevest and musicians DJ Asna, Thomas Gueî, and Nicolas Jaar (whose piece of music Time for Us already contained a wonderful slowdown) each brought their artistry to the project.
The whispered child voice narration is a unifying motif which you wrote during the editing phase. Had you always planned to include that poem or was it in assembling the film that you realised it was needed?
The poem in the first scene had already been chosen before we shot the Kumpo scene – so yes, it was planned from the beginning. Meless (the second collaborator in this scene) and I felt a strong connection between these words and the creature, so we recorded it with his five year old daughter. The child’s whispered voice of wisdom invites us to perceive everything around us as animate, as alive. And therein lies the beauty of the Diola faith, of which Meless and his daughter are a part.
I wrote only the poem in the final petal-whirlwind scene, and that happened during the editing phase. It is the only scene that I shot in solitude and the one that is most strongly connected to myself. The voice there echoes, in spirit, the first scene with the Kumpo. In this final scene, the child’s voice addresses her mother – Mother Earth. But it turns out that this is not a human child. It’s a flower petal. The petal says: “I have fallen, but I can dance, better than ever, with your brother the wind and my new friend, the plastic.” These lines came to me as I watched the images again and again. I imagined, like a child might, the story of a petal that once lived as part of a flower, held firmly together with its beloved ones. And then a time comes when the flower disintegrates, the petals fall – meaning the family, or a partnership, breaks apart. In the moment of falling, the petal gains the ability to dance. It’s no longer held in place, though it feels lost.
The child’s whispered voice of wisdom invites us to perceive everything around us as animate, as alive.
Before the journey, I went through a painful separation and mourning. I fell into a darkness deeper than I had ever known. And it was in that time that I learned to dance again. That’s where the line “I have fallen, but I can dance, better than ever” comes from. In the midst of grief, I danced – at night in parks, at noon in my room, in the evening in dance classes. Despite the sadness – or because of it. I tried to dance the sadness away, but it didn’t always work. I felt that dance was the final gift left to me by the person who was no longer in my life. Again, the theme of seeing the body as an ultimate, ephemeral, ever-present gift resonates with me.
Likewise, I can imagine that the order of the scenes and how what comes before recontextualises what follows would have taken quite some consideration. For instance, some of the movements from the dust dance returned my mind to the Kumpo. How did you arrive at this final order and was that a fraught process?
That’s a beautiful observation – the shared gesture of rotation. I had once envisioned the rotating movement as a visual motif running through the entire film. It’s also present in the petals. But in the end, we couldn’t sustain it across all scenes. And maybe that’s how it should be – some patterns want to dissolve. Finding the final order of the scenes was a long and uncertain process. In an experimental structure, everything is theoretically possible – but only certain sequences bring meaning to the surface. You move one scene and everything shifts – tone, resonance, memory.
Over the course of a year, I shared the edit with friends and collaborators from Switzerland, Senegal, Guinea, and Côte d’Ivoire. Each exchange became a kind of rewriting. The film reshaped itself again and again through these conversations. Eventually, we found a rhythm where abruptness felt right. The cuts are often sudden, even jarring. As beings, we don’t always get transitions – we get ruptures. Death arrives without a cue. Grief interrupts joy. What mattered to me was not smoothness, but connection. Even in the jump there may be a thread – an invisible logic that holds things together, however loosely.
Finding the final order of the scenes was a long and uncertain process. In an experimental structure, everything is theoretically possible – but only certain sequences bring meaning to the surface.
Your film is genre-bending, multifaceted and open-ended, but what does Déjà Nu truly mean to you?
Your use of the word “truly” makes me think. Perhaps, for me, Déjà Nu is a tool for coping with personal grief. A way to liberate myself from the feeling of being trapped inside my mind, the self, and also my body. It was an attempt to dance while still carrying sadness. And maybe also a helpless cry for acceptance of growing older. Since the film is open-ended and layered by design, it always seems to shift, doesn’t it? It holds a different meaning for each person who touches it – those in front of the camera, those behind it, those who watch. And maybe that’s its truest meaning: not one truth, but many. Not closure, but a continual unfolding.
I initially thought that your tantalising end with the “Ma Vie” (My Life) title card, comprised of fractal colours which lasts 0.1 seconds, was perhaps a hint of another related film to come, creating a series, but it seems it has a much more profound meaning for you as a person?
Ha, that’s a lovely idea – a hint of another film to come. I might actually implement that. For me, that flicker is a gesture toward cosmic time, geological time. In the scale of the Earth, of stones and elements, my life is a blip. A brief pulse. A tiny flash in the void. That awareness has grounded me, and I wanted to leave it there, at the very end of the film. A reminder that the body disappears swiftly. The one-tenth-of-a-second visual is a close-up of my purple beets, burnt almost black in the oven, layered with a splash of Jackson Pollock’s artwork. I hope the audience receives that closing moment as a wink. A brief laugh in the dark.
Where are your creative travels taking you next?
I’m currently working on four projects:
- KY is a feature-length documentary about Laetitia Ky – the Ivorian artist, activist, feminist, and co-creator of the menstrual blood scene. It follows her artistic process and emotional journey as she explores agency over the female body.
- On the Edge of Your Senses is an experimental short that leads viewers toward the threshold of perception – spaces where the senses falter. Where we’re not quite sure whether we’re truly perceiving… or imagining.
- Meinetwegen (For My Sake) is a feature narrative centered on 17 therapy sessions between a juvenile offender and a forensic psychiatrist. Two people, one room, silence, speech, imbalances of power.
- And then there’s Oszilot – a live performance in which we use sensors to sonify everyday objects, giving them a kind of sonic life.
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