CHALLENGE + WHIPPING ZOMBIE (F/F) (2017) 

Synopsis

The mystique of the falcon and the obsession to control morning's minion, stretches back through the mists of time, but nothing will prepare you for this contemporary, blinged Mad Max journey across the Qatari desert towards a falconry competition. Fuelled by the petrodollar, falconry has reached ridiculous heights - prize birds, often costing as much as $24,000, arrive in private jets complete with designer hoods and hand-polished beaks. Their owners speed down empty highways in their Lamborghini's - with pet cheetah's in the passenger seat - or on gold-plated Harleys. Set amidst breathtaking desert scenery, rich men bond, but their lives appear all surface and as empty as the dunes. This unusual, intriguing short is the first filmic documentation of the ritual of the kale zombi – a mixture of dance, trance-inducing percussion and flagellation – that re-enacts the trauma of slavery in a remote Haitian village.