Lettres du voyant

A hypnotic, essayistic drift through mines, rituals and scams, blending documentary and fiction into a dense meditation on history and technology.

Directed by

Louis Henderson

Overview

Lettres du Voyant is a documentary-fiction about spiritism and technology in contemporary Ghana, which attempts to uncover some truths about a mysterious practice called 'Sakawa' – internet scams mixed with voodoo magic. Tracing back the scammers’ stories to the times of Ghanaian independence, the film proposes Sakawa as a form of anti-neocolonial resistance. The film takes the form of a voyage to the end of the world, travelling through a network of digitised mine shafts that lead the viewer to each of the film’s locations; a gold mine, an e-waste dump, a voodoo ritual or a discotheque for example. A character recounts a story through reading a series of letters that he has written to the film’s author – letters that speak about the colonial history of Ghana, of gold, of technology.

How it feels

Eerie, earnest, tense and satirical. Slow-burning and demanding.

About

Colonialism, technology, corruption, power

Content

Mild violence and language. No gore or sexual content.

Note

Written by AI, so it can be wrong. Full breakdown

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