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Haitian filmmaker Samuel Suffren’s debut feature “Job 1:21,” unveiled in the Work-in-Progress section of Visions du Réel, Switzerland’s leading documentary film festival, is already gaining traction on the industry circuit, picking up one of the top prizes at the market forum.

The project denounces Haiti’s justice system through the story of a woman imprisoned for years without trial and later judged not by law, but by scripture.

Shot between 2019 and 2021 in Port-au-Prince, the film follows a group of former female inmates who stage a play condemning the country’s prison system. At its center is Nathalie, who fights for the release of her sister Aline, held in prolonged pretrial detention – a widespread practice in Haiti.

Aline is unexpectedly freed during the COVID-19 pandemic, as authorities release detainees accused of minor offenses to free up the overpopulated jails. But her ordeal doesn’t end there. After five years in prison without trial, she is judged in absentia – in a sequence that gives the film its title.

“The main character is judged using a biblical text,” Suffren told Variety. “Instead of using the law, the judge uses the Bible: Job 1, verse 21. There is no legal text. Nothing – he judges based on that verse.”

In the scene, the ruling is delivered without any legal basis, ultimately accusing Aline of being a “loup-garou.” Rooted in a local myth about a child-killing, cannibalistic werewolf, it underscores the film’s depiction of a system where superstition, religion and unchecked authority meet. “The judgment becomes more theatrical than the play itself,” said Suffren.

The film unfolds against the backdrop of Haiti’s escalating crisis, where armed gangs have seized control of large parts of Port-au-Prince. Suffren left the country in 2024 after violence made it impossible to continue working. His filmmaking collective was forced to shut down, and his daily life became increasingly difficult. Recalling one incident, he said armed men stopped him at gunpoint while filming and warned him: “If it had been later, we would have killed you.” He left soon after, carrying the film with him on a hard drive.

Now based in France, Suffren describes his departure as a personal rupture rather than formal exile. “When you feel you no longer have a home, that’s when exile begins,” he said. “You can be in exile even in your own country.”

For producer Eugénie Michel-Villette, the project’s strength lies in both its immediacy and its construction. “We’re really in this shaken, chaotic reality of Haiti, with the force of direct cinema,” she said. “We quickly realized there was a film, a very strong, important one, because the women Samuel filmed are incredibly powerful, and so are their journeys.”

She also highlights the film’s central contrast: “There’s a parallel between a theater of former detainees and a kind of judicial ‘performance’: one fails to deliver justice, while the other becomes a form of catharsis that, in a way, saves these women.”

The feature marks a shift in style for Suffren, whose acclaimed short film trilogy – “Agwe,” “Des Rêves en Bateau Bleu” (“Dreams Like Paper Boats”) and “Coeur Bleu” (“Blue Heart”) – premiered at Locarno, Sundance and Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight respectively. Here, he moves toward a more direct, observational form while retaining a strong visual signature.

Most of “Job 1:21” is already shot, with footage now effectively archival as several locations seen in the film – including the prison and theater spaces – no longer exist. The project is currently seeking partners for post-production.

Additional sound work still needs to be done, notably to capture the singing voice of the central character. As Suffren cannot return to Haiti, the recordings will be handled locally by a longtime collaborator.

Les Films du Bilboquet, which produces the project, is also enjoying a strong showing at Visions du Réel, with titles including Hassen Ferhani’s “Alea Jacarandas” picking up the Burning Lights Competition Award, while Elsa Amiel’s “Dentro” received the Interreligious Award.

The outfit is also heading to Cannes with Marie Clémentine Dusabejambo’s “Ben’imana” (Un Certain Regard) and Mahsa Karampour’s “Dans la gueule de l’ogre” (ACID).

Visions du Réel runs in Nyon, Switzerland until April 26.

Produced with Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo (“Veneno,” “La Mesías”), now Cannes Festival main competition contenders as directors of “La Bola Negra,” Movistar Plus+ Original “I Always Sometimes” begins with love at first lust. 

Laura (Ana Boga), a festival organizer in Berlin, and Rubén (David Menéndez), a bar owner, meet at music fest Sonar and now walk the night-time streets of Barcelona quoting Rilke. They attend a rave on Montjuich, chill out in a chic bar owned by a friend of Ruben’s, and have great sex, after which Rubén proposes she moves in.   

Cut to Ep. 2. Laura got pregnant one week after meeting Rubén, has moved out – he proved a booze-addled wastrel – and is back with her suffocating parents.  

Created by Marta Bassols and Marta Loza, all the remaining episodes are entitled by the place Laura squats with her infant child Mario as she desperately attempt find a flat of her own in Barcelona, a city awash with rich tourists and gentrification, and to earn enough money to bring Mario up, though she has to spend most of her time caring for him, which she loves. 

“Rent here is bloody insane. It’s impossible to find anything,” Laura complains to an artist friend. “Nothing’s impossible,” he retorts. “Flats in Barcelona are,” Laura replies with vehemence. 

A touching take on maternity grounded in the nightmarish economics of single motherhood and indeed current-day life, as well as the emotional chaos of an early thirty-something, “I Always Something” was released April 23 on Movistar Plus+ in Spain. It now makes its international debut at Canneseries in main international competition two days later.

Shot in six episodes, of 22-35 minutes, “I Always Sometimes” marks an auspicious writing debut from Bassols and Loza, and a case in point of the Javis’ nurturing new talent in Spain. Bassols, who played Roberta in “This Is Not Sweden,” was seen in “La Mesías”; Loza served as art director on TV series “Mariliendre,” also produced by Suma Content, the Javis production house. Directors are Claudia Costafreda, a writer on the Javis breakthrough “Veneno” before breaking out creating and directing “Cardo,” produced by Ambrossi and Calvo. Ginesta has directed episodes of Canneseries winner “Perfect Live” and Netflix smash hit “Elite.”

Variety chatted to Las Martas in the run-up to Canneseries. 

Laura and Rubén share their love of Rainer Maria Rilke, quoting a passage in “Letters to a Young Poet” where he advises that “the point is, to live everything.” Laura, likewise, doesn’t want her existence to be defined by being a single mother….

Bassols: Laura likes sex, life, her work, art, eating, being with her woman friends. She likes the same she’d like if she wasn’t a mother. Maternity does’t eliminate what a person was before, nor occupy all their concerns. What Laura is doing is really important, but other things are really important to her. Her success is to see love and poetry all the time, despite her circumstances. 

Most romances begin with normal life and build to a happy ending. “I Always Sometimes” is the other way round.

Bassols: Episode 1 is like what happens after the happy ending. 

Loza: This is the story of a young woman who’s trying to find her way in life, and a million things happen to her. Episode 1 was originally Episode 4, a flashback. Editing, however, we realized we lacked context, which gave larger depth to the characters, and made the series much more original. You understand Laura more, where she comes from, her expectations, her origin, and so understand far more the rest of her journey.

Episodes vary in tone…

Loza: Every episode has a different color, set in a place that forms part of her life where Laura tries to find herself, from the position she’s now in. Each episode is like an isolated story, which can be watched independently, inspired a lot by the show stories of Raymond Carver. She lives in a different house and in a way is looking for part of herself in the places where she was happy before becoming a mother, but something’s changed. 

And how did you share directing?

Loza: I directed the first episode, Claudia [Costafreda] directed the second,  third and No. 6 and Ginesta [Guindal] 4 and 5.

And did you have any general guidelines, regarding direction? 

Loza: Since my episode was the first, the first romantic moments, I was clear that it had to be the opposite of the rest: sequence shots, giving space for the actors, with a lot of rehearsals so that the actors could make the dialogs theirs, incorporating improvisation to break with the text, and give everything a before-dawn feel. Ginesta’s Episode 4, in contrast, where she Laura touches rock bottom, there are a lot of shots, editing, a sense of acceleration, and I think it works. Every episode had a different color, some warmer, some cold and Episode 6, set in Berlin, almost reaching black and white.  

Most of the series, however, is set in Barcelona, which is crucial. 

Borras: Yes, Barcelona comes across normally as a cool place, a vanguard city which everybody wants to visit. Our series catches the hostility of the city, its gentrification, “touristification,” and the problem with flat rent prices, which are next to impossible.  Barcelona is a great place to raise a child if you have a lot of money. There’s the beach, parks, the climate. But we wanted “I Always Sometimes” to be full of nuance where the marvellous runs up against the hellish. And everybody in film can be good or bad at the same time and the series’ title also defines the city as well. It’s the ying and yang. Nobody is purely anything. Everybody is full of contradictions. What we like is to reflect and embrace them, those which can be worked on to become a better person…

The series is described as a realistic vision of motherhood. It returns time and again to economic factors, which you don’t see so much in titles with women protagonists…

Loza: The series talks about the difficulty of reconciling work and raising a child and enjoying that. 

Borras: Neoliberalism is now so exacerbated that to live you have to put work at the center of your life when life should be at the center and work help you to be happier and live better.

It’s never too late to dream – at least according to the gospel of “Boho.”

In the show, presented at Canneseries, Kima, her sister Nawal and their friend Alex navigate societal pressures. Kima’s family claims she should finally settle down. Instead, she rediscovers her love of dancing. 

“I’m a huge dreamer, too. Even more so now,” says creator Abbie Boutkabout. Director Olympia Allaert agrees:  “When life gets serious, you forget about your dreams or push them aside. But this show really, really encourages dreaming. Especially when it comes to women,” she insists.

“Not all women want the same things. Not all women want a steady job, a house and three kids. Kima wonders: ‘What did I want when I was a little girl? Oh yes, I used to love dancing.’ It opens up a new world for her.”

The show, sold internationally by Banijay Rights and currently available on Streamz, doesn’t shy away from difficult topics. But it still keeps things funny.

“You can talk about something serious with a bit of laughter and light-heartedness. That’s what I do with my friends in real life as well. I wanted to write something that has heart,” Boutkabout tells Variety. 

Allaert adds: “When something bad happens, you can make a joke about it. Kima gets fired and she has no connection with her mum. I think everyone has gone through something like that. The way these actresses portray it makes it really tangible. It’s as if you’re there with them.”

Serine Ayari, Ikram Aoulad and Miss Angel star. At first, one of the main characters was supposed to be white. 

“We asked ourselves: ‘Do we really need that?’ The power of this show is that you see three friends – that’s it. We’re not focusing on their differences; we’re focusing on who they are,” says Helen Perquy, producing for jonnydepony. 

Boutkabout says: “I watch a lot of films and a lot of television, but I’ve never seen main characters who look like me, talk like me or have the same family issues.”

“There are so many of us, and we don’t recognize ourselves in the fiction that’s created. Riz Ahmed gave this amazing speech about why it’s important for our stories to be written by us, too. In the end, it’s about how we’re perceived. Are we seen as human, or are we seen as less than the white characters?”

She also wanted to celebrate an “imperfect” female character in Kima. 

“I’m someone who doesn’t really act her age. I’m in my 40s and I’m the messiest person I know. I love messy women. I adore them,” she laughs. 

“I’m also the daughter of immigrants and our parents still think of us in a certain way. They came to this country, so we have to do even better. We have to be perfect. For our parents, and for this country we were born into but which still thinks of us as just passing through.”

Allaert notes: “By the time you’re 30, you need a house, you need a relationship and you need children. That’s the image we’re getting served up every day and that’s why it still feels revolutionary to see a real woman on screen. Kima falls hard – and then goes to the kitchen and makes herself a sandwich.” 

“Boho” is all about “the female gaze,” underlines Perquy. And for the longest time, Kima doesn’t feel seen. 

“We call her a dreamer, but ‘delusional’ would be another way to describe her. What kind of person in their 30s goes: ‘I think I will start dancing again.’? I was also a bit delusional at 38 when I left a good job to become a screenwriter,” recalls Boutkabout.

Initially, the show was much darker, influenced by the ongoing pandemic and Boutkabout’s transition into motherhood. However, this made the message “too obvious.”

“My producers said: ‘How about you write something funny?’ I realized that humor was the counterweight I needed, also to channel all these negative emotions. From then on, I’ve had the time of my life.”

Helen Perquy adds: “I’m a firm believer in ‘a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.’ We say a lot with this show, but you almost don’t feel it. It’s joyful and, as Olympia calls it, it’s like a warm blanket in hard times. We all need a warm blanket.”

While the industry continues to mourn the end of the Golden Age of TV, she insists: “In Europe, we should lead the way. That’s for sure.” 

“Things are shifting and changing, but in Flanders and Belgium, we have never been known for doing what’s expected. If you protect the creative voice and really understand what you’re making, you’ll find your audience.” 

This approach is evident in the dystopian series “Arcadia” and “The Big Fuck Up.” 

“We try to fight for this creative window, which is narrowing. The ‘old white man’ is back, that’s true, but ‘Boho’ shows that things can still be done differently.”