Interview: Dexter Navy on SAINT
The director talks about his poetic Paris Now! film
In advance of Red Bull Music Academy Paris 2015, Paris Now! is our first foray into fiction film, and it gathers a diverse group of five directors that we’ve given carte blanche to explore and examine the creative pockets and reverberations of Parisian culture.
The stark images of Dexter Navy’s SAINT are a poem written by and for the city, detailing the rapid creative shifts taking place in a visual style that matches that speed of change. Navy is a director / photographer on the rise, due to his stunning work with A$AP Rocky, so we send over a few questions via email to find out more behind his vision for SAINT.
What was the first experience you had in Paris that made you want to temporarily settle there?
I would say it was the people and energy Paris gave me that made settle there for two years!
Who wrote the featured poem? Was it written to music originally or was that a separate composer?
My friend Cleo Wade. Sama and Haya showed me Cleo’s poems back in L.A. and I had to use her for this. The music was scored to the film by my longtime collaborators Acyde & Eagle Blakk!
Generally speaking, which contemporary Parisian artists do you think you feel a kinship with and why?
Jean Paul Goude is my favourite artist, everything he does – from photography to video – is unique and true to him!
How do you feel the art scenes you work in vary between London, Los Angeles and Paris in terms of what the artists are trying to accomplish?
Different cultures inspire different energy, so I've been lucky enough to spend time in each country and fuse it into one.
How did you attempt to balance the disparate but striking visual imagery included in the film while still maintaining a semblance of a narrative?
There is no narrative.
“Everybody is nobody” is a quote from the film that jumped out to me.
I wanted that quote to express the idea that everybody is the same: none higher, none lower.
How do you think your creative energy manifests differently in your work in film versus in photography?
I like to think both my photography and film reflect each other!
