Co-directed and co-written by Italian filmmaker
Alice Rohrwacher and French artist
JR on their second collaboration after
Omelia Contadina (2020),
An Urban Allegory is based on
Plato's
Allegory of the cave and marks Naïm El Kaldaoui's first role as 7-year-old protagonist Jay. The short film is connected to the collaborative art project
Chiroptera, with the score being composed by
Thomas Bangalter and choreographed by
Damien Jalet. The directors said about the film in a press statement released in August 2024: What lies behind the daily movement of a city? Last winter, we met in Paris and began discussing the
Allegory of the cave, as told in
Plato's
Republic. The myth imagines humanity living in chains, facing the back of a cave, and watching shadows move on the walls, thinking it is reality. We both work with images, which certainly can be illusions, but can also become instruments of struggle and liberation of thought. So, from this discussion, we decided to create a short film. We had a few fixed ideas—the cave, the dance, the city bustling around us—and one question: what would happen if we all managed to turn together towards the exit of the cave? Perhaps it is not enough to assert that images are illusions as long as the chains that bind us are real. == Release ==