We all know the most renowned pages of the book "Jazz": Icare, the sword-swallower, Pierrot's Funeral, the Lagoon reproduced in all works of modern art or in the form of postcards. But how many know that these plates, which all appear to be paintings, are in reality the "illustrated plates" of a book?

An exceptional art book, printed in 270 copies, created by Henri Matisse, who invented the new process of "live" cutting-out in colour: paper - gouache - scissor cutouts, with a new instrument for freedom that he used right up to his final day. Jazz is also the outcome of a particularly fruitful friendship between Matisse and the publisher Tériade, who produced the book with exceptional care, printing it entirely by stencil-work.

Starting from the small Tériade museum on island of Lesbos, where the book is "opened" page by page on the walls, just as Matisse wished, the film proposes to retrace this artistic and human adventure, attempting to make felt, rather than describe, this extraordinary exploration of space and light.

Michel Jaffrennou