Blois couleur locale

Dutch artist Jan Dibbets was invited by Jack Lang, then mayor of the French town of Blois, to design a series of windows for the local cathedral. Director Rolf Orthel films Dibbets during this project, which took almost ten years, from the sketches in the studio, via the selection of the glass, to the eventual installation in the church. Parallel to this, Orthel portrayed the community for whom the windows were intended: the inhabitants of Blois. On the priest’s advice, he mainly keeps his ear to the ground. In twenty-six portraits, he shows various inhabitants, such as a young woman dreaming of a man, a house and a child; an elderly woman who has to auction the furniture of the family hotel; a refugee who has been cherishing a cowbell for years. These are the people for whom Dibbets is working all this time.