Joseph and his Brothers

‘Joseph and his brothers’ is a film about a regular day in the life of Joseph, a man wandering in purgatory, stuck between train stations, amusement parks, and museums, looking to make sense of his existence.

  • Jean-Michel Brawand
    Director
  • Jean-Michel Brawand
    Writer
  • Jean-Michel Brawand
    Producer
  • Youssef Aboutahir
    Key Cast
    "Joseph"
  • Alanis Todeschini
    Sound Designer
  • Jean-Michel Brawand
    Cinematographer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Short
  • Runtime:
    18 minutes 25 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    September 1, 2020
  • Production Budget:
    2,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Switzerland
  • Country of Filming:
    Switzerland
  • Language:
    English, French
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    4:3
  • Film Color:
    Black & White and Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
  • Horror Unleashed
    Porto
    Portugal
    October 1, 2021
    Semi-Finalist
  • Duka Film Festival
    Berlin
    Germany
    September 12, 2020
    World premiere
    Official Selection
Director Biography - Jean-Michel Brawand

Born in Taiwan and raised in London, Manila, and Switzerland, Jean-Michel Brawand is a Swiss-Filipino filmmaker whose films blend documentary realism with impressionistic storytelling. He studied painting and video at Central Saint Martins and has since presented his works in festivals and galleries worldwide.

His approach is deeply personal, making use of an array of home movie footage, family photographs, diary entries, and appropriated images to construct his own visual language. Drawing influence from psychoanalysis, anthropology and long-take realism, he’s worked with both professional and non-professional actors to evoke raw, layered performances. Now based in Berlin, he’s given lectures on film history and visual archaeology, as well as workshops on guerrilla filmmaking.

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Director Statement

In 2019, having lived in Berlin for a year, I went back to Switzerland for the summer wishing to make sense of an unhappier time in my life. I reconnected with a good friend of mine, Youssef, who I’d known since I was 16, who had also experienced similar traumas and setbacks living there. Together, we thought it may be interesting to visit places around Geneva and Lausanne that were important to us, so as to see what kind of feelings may arise when reencountering these spaces.

Although ‘Joseph and his brothers’ does contain a strong documentary component, the intent was not to render a wholly factual narrative, but to attempt something more allegorical, that would take elements of our shared biography and unconscious, and turn them into something more akin to a tale. In doing so, the film could therefore bypass the need for a more objective resolution, and instead, evoking feelings and sensations that would force the viewer into a more visceral experience, where they would get a deeper sense of Joseph’s world, and could feel before understanding.