French Guiana is, to say the least, rarely shown in cinemas – we see perhaps the beautiful landscapes, the jungle, the coastline, perhaps even the gold mines. These are the backdrops and decorations that Maxime Jean-Baptiste, director of “Listen to the Voices” (“Kouté vwa”) – shown in the Filmmakers of the Present section at the Locarno Film Festival and sold by MoreThan Films – wanted to avoid at all costs.

When asked by Variety how he planned to portray Guyana, Jean-Baptiste cited as a counterexample “Jean Galmot, Aventurier,” a 1970s French adventure film in which his father was an extra — something essential in his short films “Nou Voix” (2018) and “Moune Ô” (2021). In fact, most of Jean-Baptiste’s work is a family affair — in addition to those titles, he co-directed “Listen to the Bear of Our Images” (2021) with Audrey Jean-Baptiste, his sister, who also co-wrote “Listen to the Voices.”

What makes “Listen to the Voices” a family affair is not just this collaboration, but the personal tragedy that set it in motion. The director’s nephew, Lucas Diomar, was brutally murdered in 2012, plunging his family into an abyss of grief from which they have still not emerged. Lucas’s nephew, 13, is spending his summer vacation with his grandmother in French Guiana, trying to escape his “lame” life in Stains, Paris. While Nicole—Melrick’s attentive grandmother—seems to have found a way, if not to move on, then at least to find some kind of acceptance, Yannick is deeply traumatized by the fact that he witnessed the death of his close friend firsthand, and is therefore “stuck in time,” Jean-Baptiste told Variety. As he tried to capture these various stages of grief, the director wondered, “How can I make a film that can help heal their wounds?”

The film’s original title – “Kouté vwa” is French créole for “Listen to the Voices” – succinctly sums up its poetic programme: a polyphony of intertwined testimonies. The film draws on the deeply personal source of the story, summons these different voices and opens a resonance chamber between them. To achieve this, the production team worked together. “I asked them: How do you want to see yourself represented? We cut a lot of scenes because they didn’t fit [their ideas]; it was a joint process. It was very emotional for all three actors, because they are in different stages of mourning.” This collaborative effort results in a fascinating mix of documentary and fiction. Jean-Baptiste argues that, paradoxically, “fiction actually created a distance that made it easier – for me, but also for the protagonists – to tell their stories.”