Presented in a world premiere in the International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Bright Future section, Swiss director Mateo Ybarra’s first feature film Summer Camp [+lee también:
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entrevista: Mateo Ybarra
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Cineuropa: Why film a scout camp? What’s the connection with your other film, LUX [+lee también:
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Mateo Ybarra: I was never a scout. It’s not at all a world I know or that I’m familiar with, I learned about it through the film. The basic idea with this film was to learn about that world, to meet the people involved in it and to transcribe it all through a film. I really like the dual-dynamic of discovery and transcription. That said, I also wanted to pursue the line of thought I’d initiated in my first film about the Swiss army, which I co-directed with Raphaël Dubach. That film focused on something fairly similar to the scout camp that I filmed in 2022, both in terms of its form and its content. The "military" side of the scouts can also be found in the biography of the movement’s founder, Robert Baden-Powell, who was a general who was tired of being in the army and who decided to steer his emerging movement in the direction of values such as peace and respect for nature, while retaining a "military" format, with routines, a uniform, etc. I’d grown a little tired of the army world, but I did want to pursue my reflection on organised groups like these. I also wanted to make something cheerier, after Covid: young people meeting up, bodies sharing space. And the camp only takes place once every fourteen years, so I didn’t have time to waste.

What draws you to these communities which, you have to admit, do seem worrying from the outside?
Personally, I love observing people, their conversations, their exchanges. That’s what fascinates me. In the films I’ve shot about the army and in this one, I wanted to capture young people being educated by other young people. It’s actually teenagers educating very young children on how to behave and evolve within society. I really like that side of it because it’s through their exchanges that you get an idea of how they take back control for themselves or adapt to the world, which is also their world, whether for ecological or societal reasons. That said, I also show moments where the social codes which might be imposed by the scout movement, or which some youngsters simply imitate, like the group of boys who sing a really sexist song which is banned in Germany, intermingle with these deeper reflections. It’s interesting to show how these youngsters do or don’t follow society’s rules.

On that topic, do you like to muddy the waters by playing on the ambiguities associated with the scouts?
There’s no doubt that people have a view of the scouts as outdated and a little naive. I didn’t want to lean on that or restore their image. I wanted to show how exactly this very traditional movement is turning into something more modern, how it’s adapting to contemporary society. I wanted to make a film rich in all those testimonies and experiences. As I shot the movie, I discovered a multitude of different interpretations of the scouts movement. It’s a shame we didn’t film all of the groups we saw, but it was really hard obtaining the permissions we needed. There were very religious, evangelistic scouts in the camp, queer scouts who were all over gender issues, Black Bloc scouts dressed all in black and politically anti-capitalist… There were all kinds of interpretations of the movement all rubbing alongside one another.

What does filming young people mean to you?
It’s always fascinating filming young people; it was a unique experience that I loved. It’s also really tricky because, even though the subjects they broach can be really crude and questionable, you have to show compassion for the people you’re filming. You shouldn’t ever point the finger, especially when it comes to young people. It was a singular experience to film young people. In my movie, it’s a very generic experience connected with a camp which lots of people - in Switzerland at least - have taken part in. To begin with, you feel excited about meeting up with everyone, then comes the tiredness, and then sadness knowing it will all be over soon. I wanted to capture those emotions, and for the audience to have a sensory experience of them.