Sophie Louÿs

Marianne, a beautiful woman from Réunion Island destined for a great career as a mermaid swimming champion, has been living in hell since a huge beard began to grow on her face following a psychological shock. Rejected and unable to bear her image any longer, she will try everything to get rid of this unlikely hairy attribute, but will end up facing something far more monstrous than herself.

In Reunion Island, green casuarinas are swept by trade winds. We skim the black sandy earth until we reach the center and come upon a stage, a "ron," where poets succeed one another to deliver their "fonnkers" and perpetuate the Creole language. Their bodies vibrate, their feet stomp the basaltic soil to invoke the secret tale. The poem thus becomes the ritual for an identity quest. Tonight is kabar night "Ôté fonnkézer. Rant dann ron, detak la lang, demay lo kèr!" (Oh Poet. Walk on stage, free your tongue, untangle your heart!) The texts of these poems have urged us to resist for the past forty years. Could their panting souls be whispering the possibility of resilience to our ears?