In a random suburb, away from the capital, another world takes shape on the fringes of this world, the world of the djinns who belong to the night, linked to a distant origin.

Jinns, the evil spirits of Islamic tradition, manifest themselves mainly at night. The various people brought together by Souad Kettani have experienced them: one heard them in the Senegalese bush, another in her kitchen, a third found herself possessed by them... Whether these demons exist or not, one thing is certain: the memories are very much alive. The stories testify to the different uses of beliefs: as tools of social control or as bulwarks against madness. "Who's there?" clearly shows how one culture comes to the rescue of another: a sura in Arabic provides protection that is lacking, a reference from Hollywood films helps describe a supernatural experience. And when no job is to be found, jinns provide a more acceptable explanation than the fact that a once colonial country hungry for foreign labour deprives so many of its citizens of a decent life. The shots describing the architecture of the Parisian suburban town where the various witnesses reside reinforce the bitterness of this observation: the desolate character of the place inevitably appears as a void to be filled. The djinns then become the synecdoche of the survival of an exogenous cultural heritage among immigrants and their descendants. A heritage that can stigmatise, but also act as a refuge: in a society prone to segregation, the djinns form the link between here and there.

Olivia Cooper-Hadjian (Cinéma du réel)