Cinema, you luminous temptress, you intoxicating she-demon peddling your flickering heroin of the soul.

I, Jean-Franc Pompeux, have given you every grain of my sand in my life’s hourglass, every cell of blood in my bastard veins, every drop of absinthe in my cupboard. Once, all Europe swooned before my beautiful nightmares. Now here I sit, reduced to shooting B-roll footage of flabby beachgoers for local newscast reports about obesity, while a thousand grasping talons rend the flesh of my beloved cinema. And yet, I regret nothing!

Alas, my muse had flown like a filthy, disease-ridden pigeon, cackling insults and mockery in its wake. Gone was the inspiration that produced my heartbreaking 1961 neorealist statement Death By Mayonnaise, or my 1973 odyssey of erotic yearning and parcel delivery, Anna Par Avion. But now, now, my harlot muse has returned to the arms of my mind, in the form of the Kodak EasyShare Zi6 Pocket HD Video Camera.

Not only does this dazzling imp of a camera capture 720p video at frame rates of up to 60 fps; not only does its SD/SDHC slot take cards of up to 32GB (sold separately); not only does it include batteries and charger; but it fits right into my pocket. And there lies the inspiration for the work that will make me once again the toast of Perpignan: The Pocket Of The Damned. Yes, it will be filmed entirely with the Kodak EasyShare Zi6 in my left pants pocket…or is it my right? This is but one of many enigmas that the viewer must grapple with through five excruciating hours of almost total darkness and barely audible sound. Never before has cinema attempted such a fearless examination of dislocation, of disinheritance, of disappointment. Pompeux, you genius!

With the Kodak EasyShare Zi6 Pocket HD Video Camera, The Pocket Of The Damned will prove the old maxim that the superior filmmaker has the right, no, the duty to waste his audience’s time. Perhaps – do I dare dream? – my new work will take its place alongside my other masterworks, like A Dog Vomits In Algiers and The Fascist Cigarette. Vive le cinéma!

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