Ivan Markovi?’s feature debut Promised Spaces, which premiered at Cannes, unfolds in Cambodia, where an imposing residential development takes shape as an emblem of a future that remains out of reach for those constructing it. Beneath its promise of an idealized future, workers inhabit the unfinished structures they build, while a newly moved resident encounters a more ambiguous form of (dis)comfort. Through sparse dialogue and meticulously composed images, Markovi? observes the uneasy coexistence of excess, aspiration, labour and exclusion. Rain and vegetation, contrasted with architecture and artificial interiors become equal presences in a quietly immersive film, as the camera moves through a world where promise and reality remain in tension. Blending documentary observation with dreamlike fiction, Promised Spaces becomes a quietly powerful meditation on class, desire and the unequal landscapes produced by the promises of modernity. (ME)

Presented with the support of the Critical Media Lab McGill and of the Leadership for the Ecozoic

Promised Spaces