The Loving Portraits of ‘Sidewalk Shorts’

This French crossmedia project (web, iPhone, book, tv) affectionately documents the personal stories of some of the most remarkable “street corner celebrities” of Paris. There’s Magda Pigalle, a 60-year-old Algerian transvestite from Paris’ red light district; Patrick – a homeless guy who gambles on the stock market, Violette “a flower among flowers” who runs her heavenly shop in Rue Monge. These are all authentic, moving stories about real people, beautifully shot and edited into 6 to 8-minute webisodes. Sidewalk Shorts (Brèves de Trottoirs) successfully mixes intimate “Boston School”-style photography (think Nan Goldin, Jack Pierson) and video. Kudos to the two creators, Olivier Lambert and Thomas Salva, for achieving this remarkable level of intimacy. Love how the camera explores not just the people, but their shops, their homes and their little part of the sidewalk in loving detail. Out of the 7 or 8 episodes I watched, I thought that the portrait of Katya Magenta, a chatty 78-year-old hairdresser with 11 cats, was probably the most accomplished in terms of striking the right balance between photography and video.