CPH:DOX 2025 - I Am Night at Noonday / Ô chateaux

Marseille has become an island. A third of the city's housing stock has been turned into gated communities, isolated from the rest of the city behind walls and fences. So theatre director Manolo Bez dresses up as Don Quixote and rides with an armour and a lance through the sunny streets of the city. At his side is his faithful squire Sancho, who in this modern version is an Uber-coloured ex-con named Saïd, who rides a scooter and really just came to deliver a pizza. Together they embark on an incredible journey through city neighbourhoods, battling closed gates, fences, walls and other obstacles to their intervention. The odd couple provoke reactions on all sides, which is precisely the point of a film that puts performative process above artistic control. ‘I Am Night At Noonday’ is an unruly and entertaining road trip. A trippy status report from France's oldest and second largest city, and a deeply original attack on gentrification, privatisation and other modern dragons.