Jameson Pepper and Charles Flamand present a ‘visual poem’ titled Blue Gold
- TextAnother Man
Filmmaker and composer Jameson Pepper and writer Charles Flamand grew up in France like brothers. Still close friends to this day, the pair recently embarked on a surf trip to Morocco with Charles’ actual brother Henri, which ended up spawning a creative project.
Driving from Casablanca to the south of Morocco, and spending time in towns such as Taghazout and Imsouane (two centres of the country’s surf scene), Flamand and Pepper spent a week writing, filming, surfing and spending time with the Berbers and local surfers, which culminated in Blue Gold – a short film that, in Pepper’s words, represents “a visual poem depicting the voyage of three brothers”.
Combining Flamand’s talent as a writer and Pepper’s skill as a filmmaker and composer, Blue Gold features beautiful shots of Morocco overlaid with a poem spoken in classical Arabic (voice, Rania Berrada; translation, Yasmine Berrada and Mehdi Msaddeq) and an original soundtrack.
“Morocco had always been a place that had resonated with me from afar, but somewhere I’d never had the opportunity to travel to,” says Pepper of the trip. “This time last year, the trip just happened – like nomads we packed our bags and headed out. Casablanca reminded me of Palermo, in Sicily, where part of my family lives, so I did feel at home in way. When we hit the road and began our journey down south, driving through the desert landscape was a liberation from city constraints. The concept of time changed, things slowed down. From its cities, to its mountains, its desert, and sea – Morocco’s beauty is hard to beat.”
The film itself was featured in three festivals last year – one in Paris (Paris Surf & Skateboard Film Festival) and two in Los Angeles (Independent Short Awards and Los Angeles CineFest).
Head to the gallery below to see a photo story created in a separate project in Taghazout, Morocco, by French photographer Vincent Le Chapelain.
