THE BLAZE | TERRITORY | 2017
A Story of Homecoming That Starts With a Man Crying for 30 Seconds Straight / THE BLAZE "TERRITORY"
In the first 30 seconds, a man just keeps crying. He tries to hold back the tears, but they spill over, his family wraps him in a hug, and he can't stop anymore. This five-minute music video, built from just 22 shots, won the Grand Prix in the Film Craft category at Cannes Lions 2017.
The problem
THE BLAZE is a duo made up of two Paris-based cousins, Guillaume and Jonathan Alric, known for creating music and film together at the same time. The project started when Jonathan asked Guillaume to make music for an assignment at film school in Brussels. After drawing attention with "Virile" in 2016, they worked with a professional casting setup for the first time on "Territory," making it with full creative freedom.
The insight
Jonathan has said: "Everyone has a place they call home, but they live away from it. Through the story of a young man who returns to his family after a long time away, we wanted to portray strong feelings like love and the arrogance of youth. Going home isn't easy. You have to fight to feel at home again in a place you no longer belong to. It's an intense feeling, a mix of joy and contradiction." Guillaume has added: "This isn't just about masculinity. We always want to portray youth—how you spend time with friends and family, how you share a moment, that freedom." Rather than simply a story about going home, it grounds the universal struggles faced by immigrants and young people living in diaspora in one specific place: Algeria.
The idea
Filmed in Algiers, the video captures an emotional and complicated homecoming: a man returns to his family after time spent abroad and is embraced while crying. Within just 22 shots over five minutes, the opening shot of the man trying to hold back his tears runs uninterrupted for 30 seconds. In the scene where a boxing coach throws a one-two punch in front of young people, the synth sound and the movement of his fists sync up perfectly, creating a magical moment where sound and image become one. Praying, sleeping, dancing, playing—these intimate everyday moments are layered over pulsing electronic music, so that the exhilaration of being in a nightclub and the sense of freedom under the Algerian sun exist at the same time.
What happened
The "Territory" music video won the Grand Prix in the Film Craft category at Cannes Lions 2017, and also won Best Director at the Berlin Music Video Awards and Best International Dance Video at the UK MVAs. Jury president Robert Galluzzo praised it as "a stunning example of how vulnerability and poetry can look on screen." Film directors including Moonlight's Barry Jenkins and Romain Gavras have publicly said they're fans, and it was also selected for Saatchi & Saatchi's 27th New Directors' Showcase.
Afterthought
In Western culture, you rarely see a man cry in front of others for 30 seconds straight. But this video opens with exactly that. Everything is packed into that moment. Wanting to go home but not being able to, going home and not quite belonging there anymore, yet your family is still there waiting—this contradiction is shown entirely through image and music, without a word of explanation. A music duo directing their own video, winning the Grand Prix with just 22 shots—that's really something. The power of having music and image born together at the same time: that's what this is.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Grand Prix 2017
