NENETTE

Six hundred thousand people have filed past her cage each year. Seven days a week, winter and summer. For 37 years.

Humans are heard but never seen in this wry documentary that turns its focus squarely on Nénette - a 40-year-old orangutan born in Borneo and caged in the Menagerie at Paris's Jardin des Plantes, where she has outlasted any staff member. As she goes about her daily regimen visitors of all ages banter in front of her cage; people speak to her and contemplate her potential thoughts in often farcical exchanges.

A novel approach to documentary from Nicolas Philibert (Etre et Avoir), Nénette is a fascinating take on a life lived in captivity.

“This is a film on the gaze, on representation. A metaphor for the cinema, in particular for the documentary, as capturing and as capture.” - filmmaker Nicolas Philibert