May They Rest in Revolt (Figures of War I)
by
MOVIE CATEGORY
Calais is a borderland, an open space that faces the sea; for migrants waiting to reach the English coast, the town becomes a limbo where the waiting can be endless. In search of acts of normalcy that make this forced stay more bearable, men wash themselves on the beach, get to know each other, while the looming threat of being victims of raids and arrests conducted by a constantly present police force hovers. Meanwhile, the sea meets the land with unwavering repetitiveness. «This film, shot over the course of three years starting in July 2007, reveals the living conditions of migrants waiting in Calais. In this way, it exposes how agents of modern police states go well beyond the boundaries of the law, giving rise to gray areas, cracks, territories on the border between rule and exception. Individuals are thus treated as criminals; they are stripped, deprived of those fundamental rights that make them subjects under the law and reduced to the state of “bare life” or “naked life”».
DIRECTORY
Born in Lyon, France, he holds several degrees from EHESS and Sorbonne: philosophy, law, political science and cinema. Since 2006, he has made documentaries on the themes of immigration and social movements. He has collaborated with artists involved in art and politics, such as Archie Shepp, William Parker, Okkyung Lee, John Edwards, John Butcher, Serge Teyssot-Gay, Sylvain Luc, and Nicolas Crosse. Exhibitions have been dedicated to his work at Cinémathèque française (2008), Filmmaker Festival (2008), Doc’s Kingdom (2009), Subversive Festival (2010), Slovenian Cinematheque (2011), Courtisane Festival (2011), CineMigrante Festival (2011), Punto de Vista International Documentary Film Festival (2012), Lima Independent Film Festival (2013), MedFilmfestival (Rome, 2013), Milano Film Festival (2013), Festival du Film Français/Cinémathèque nationale de l’Équateur (2013), the French branch of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (2014), Cinemigrante Bogota (2015), Festival Internacional do Filme Documentário e Experimental (2015), VII Semana dos Realizadores (2015), FIDOCS (2016), FORUM DOC (2017), Museo Reina Sofía (2018), EDOC (2019) and Pupille – Kino in der Uni (2020). In 2012 he was a guest artist at the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar. He teaches at the Institut d’études politiques in Paris (IEP) and gives lectures and workshops around the world.
