Far away from the bombs raining on Vietnam, a group of artists and free thinkers retired to the peace of an island off the coast of Spain. While the local peasant farmers tended to their animals and crops, this small Hippie community painted, played the sitar and romped naked in the waves. Yvan Butler captures their utopia without ever forgetting the explosions, the cries, the flayed and burnt skin and the dead he filmed, whom he describes as "imprinting his soul". Over the course of his letter, he tells of his dejection, his grief; but also of his hope. This is one of Yvan Butler's most poignant and personal works, in which the journalist questions the very purpose of his profession, and where the peace and calm of Formentera is juxtaposed with the unspeakable horrors of the Vietnam war.
Justine Roh