Jazz Infernal (2025)
Jazz Infernal, Will Niava's Sundance-winning short, is a film with real swagger and a terrific ear, even if it ultimately leaves you wanting more. It is a propulsive, atmospheric ride, and I enjoyed a great deal of it before a frustrating finish took a little of the shine off. Three stars.
It follows Koffi, a young Ivorian trumpeter who arrives in Montréal with next to nothing, carrying only the legacy of his late father and a trumpet to his name. Things go wrong almost immediately: he cannot get through immigration, he cannot reach the aunt who was meant to take him in, and he finds himself adrift and alone in a cold, indifferent city. It is a nervy, disorienting opening, and the film does a fine job of putting you inside his displacement.
His luck turns when he falls in with a local jazz band, who take him under their wing once they realise he is the son of an apparent legend of the scene, a musician known as The Elephant. Thrust unexpectedly onto a stage, he plays, and the film's heart reveals itself in that performance, which is genuinely electric. From there it tips into something more fevered and nocturnal as the night spirals beyond his control.
What really carries it is the music and the mood. The jazz is superb, and Niava uses it brilliantly, letting it shape the film's rhythm and its mounting tension so that the whole thing crackles with a restless, improvisatory energy. It looks and sounds like the work of a filmmaker with a real voice, and the central theme of a young immigrant searching for his own place and his own sound through his father's legacy gives it genuine emotional weight.
My one real reservation is the ending. After building such momentum, the film stops abruptly and rather unsatisfyingly, cutting away just as you are leaning in, and I came out wishing it had given its story a touch more room to resolve. Three stars. Jazz Infernal is a stylish, exciting and musically thrilling calling card from a filmmaker clearly worth watching, held back only by a finish that arrives before the film feels finished.
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