Ce n’est qu’un début (ARC collective, 10 mn., 1968).
1968-2018, TAKING THE FLOOR/ TAKING PICTURES WORKSHOPS PROJECTIONS ROUND TABLES 9:45 AM – 6:30 PM THURSDAY JULY 5
F THÉÂTRE D’ARLES — Free admission
Workshops, projections and round tables based on an idea by the documentary filmmakers’ platform Tënk.
“Last May, we took the floor like they took the Bastille in 1789,” wrote Michel de Certeau in 1968. Pictures were also taken. In a few weeks, authority figures were toppled and seats of power taken over. Demonstrating, occupying and appropriating space was already a way of representing oneself, casting off the representations to which one had been assigned.
Filmmakers and photographers were drawn into this visible transformation of the social order, taking an active part by making and almost immediately showing images. Throughout the 1960s, collectives used film not just to document struggles but also to amplify them. They not only glorified the combativeness of workers echoing the activism of leftist groups, but also went into striking factories to meet those who were struggling and share their fight. In the early 1970s, other filmmakers, often using video, accompanied the women’s and gay rights movements. With researchers and witnesses, we recall that history, when ways of making films in common were invented in opposition to professional norms and social hierarchies. Fifty years after the May events, in obviously different contexts, photographers and filmmakers continue making images of today’s movements that are very different from those in the mainstream media. Most of them would probably reject the term “militant” to describe their work. However, being involved in a conflict situation necessarily leads them to think about their role and their relationships with those they film, photograph or cooperate with. With photographers and filmmakers in Notre-Damedes‑Landes and Calais, we will try to see what forms the concepts of commitment and counter-information can take today.