Astonishing audiences and critics alike at the 2019 Venice Film Festival, Théo Court’s White on White is an unforgettable journey into ethics, aesthetics and the shocking genocide of the indigenous Selk'nam people of South America at the turn of the 20th century.
Inspired by the true story of Romanian-Argentine mining pioneer, mass murderer and photography enthusiast Julius Popper, White on White follows a photographer called Pedro (Alfredo Castro, Rojo SFF19) who travels to Tierra del Fuego as a wedding photographer for a wealthy landowner.
Obsessing over his client’s very young wife-to-be, Pedro’s world is shattered as he witnesses – and photographs – the horrific violence enacted against the Selk'nam, who had over 97% of their entire population killed out during this period.
Filmed during an unforgiving winter at the southernmost tip of South America, Court has been applauded for his delicate balance of representing barbarity, while granting it a poetry all of its own. A breathtaking and sometimes confronting film, White on White is essential viewing.