Synopsis
VEGAS BABY is a documentary of approximately 52 minutes that uses Las Vegas as a prism through which to observe contemporary America. Through the making of a music video with French artist Marie Serruya, two French creators gradually discover that the world capital of entertainment is also a laboratory of all American contradictions.
Vegas promises total freedom, yet it is the most heavily surveilled city in the United States. It sells the American Dream, but it is a machine designed for you to lose. It celebrates individualism, yet produces organized loneliness. It embodies the state of permanent spectacle that, since Trump, has replaced political debate.
The film asks a simple yet vertiginous question: in the America of 2026, does freedom still exist, or is it nothing more than a mirage—a promise that recedes the closer one gets to it?
VEGAS BABY oscillates between "mockumentary" (the creative adventure of the two protagonists) and observational political documentary. It is an intelligent film that refuses easy answers, a film that shows rather than judges, a film that questions America as much as our own relationship to freedom.
WHY THIS FILM, WHY NOW
America is torn between nostalgia for a mythologized greatness and fear of an uncertain future. In this context, Las Vegas is no longer just a city of entertainment: it is the symbol of a nation that has chosen spectacle over truth.
This film arrives at a crucial moment. It documents an America in the midst of an identity crisis, a society where mass surveillance coexists with rhetoric about freedom, where neoliberalism has turned every aspect of life into a commercial transaction.
VEGAS BABY is not an activist film; it is a lucid one. It does not denounce—it reveals. It allows the viewer to grapple with the contradictions it brings to light.
STORYBOARD Excerpt
by Marie Serruya
ABOUT
Christophe Acker
Christophe Acker is a graduate of the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris. Throughout his artistic practice and professional career, photography and filmmaking have always operated in parallel—each complementing the other.
After completing his studies, he directed his first documentaries for Arte and Canal+, and his passion for music soon led him to make his first music videos. He has since directed around sixty music videos for artists such as Lou Doillon, Alain Bashung, Benjamin Biolay, Johnny Hallyday, Your Friend, Rodolphe Burger, Nicolas Comment, Charlie Winston, Olivia Ruiz, Dionysos, Deportivo, Miossec, Bernard Lavilliers, Jean-Louis Murat, Catherine Ringer, among others.
He collaborated for two years with Sebastião Salgado on the project Exodes. Across various artistic campaigns, he has worked with photographers Omar Victor Diop, Stéphane Lavoué, Denis Rouvre, Martin Schoeller, Olivier Culmann, and Kourtney Roy.
His film with Kourtney Roy, Beautiful, earned him the Silver Medal in “Image–Photography” from the Club des DA.
He produces and collaborates on films by artists such as Laurent Montaron, Louidgi Beltrame, Julien Discrit, and Pierre Malphettes, among others. This year, he published a photography book with Filigranes Éditions. His work has been exhibited at the Portrait(s) Festival in Vichy, at Les Rencontres d’Arles, and at Paris Photo.
PICTURES EXTRACT FROM BEAUTIFUL
by kourtney Roy & Christophe Acker
ABOUT
Marie Serruya
Marie Serruya is a multidisciplinary artist based between Paris and Las Vegas. She has developed a wide-ranging practice spanning sculpture and painting, as well as music, dance, and above all theatre and cinema. At the same time, she draws inspiration from this rich universe to create her miniature portraits, a practice she began at the age of 13, marking the beginning of a lifelong artistic journey.
This ongoing project, which she has titled “We Are All Unique and Limitless,” remains in constant evolution. Her portraits—made of clay, enamels, watercolor, gouache, gold leaf, bronze, video, and other media—whether miniature or monumental, static or animated, form the guiding thread of her work.
A keen observer, she develops her singular and subtly offbeat universe by casting a sharp gaze on the men and women she encounters along her path. Marie Serruya is an artist-in-residence at POUSH. She was recently selected among the ten international women artists featured in the new NFT Pavilion of the Venice Biennale. Her work has been recognized by UNESCO, which invited her to speak at the conference “Art & Human Dignity: Human Rights and Healing Arts in the Service of a Culture of Peace.”
Her works have been exhibited in galleries in France, Spain, Australia, and the United States, and are held in private collections across Europe, the United States, Australia, and the United Arab Emirates.
