presents

www.ghettoutfilms.com

GHETT’OUT FILM FESTIVAL

F R E N C H I N D E P E N D E N T F I L M S

APRIL 5-12, 2012 BRATTLE THEATRE BAMcinématek

BOSTON NEW YORK

INTENTIONS //

The “Ghett’Out Film Festival” will present independent artistic and original filmmakers working on the fringes of the French production-distribution system. These filmmakers work with small budgets thus limiting the visibility of their films - if they are able to get their film out at all - to small alternative movie houses.

Often self-taught, belonging to minority groups, living in the heart of a multiethnic French population and generally coming from lower class neighborhoods, these filmmakers are not the egalitarian ethnic quota but, to be exact, the avant-garde of a new wave.

As in Gil Scott-Heron’s song “Get Out Of The Ghetto Blues” - which gave the festival its name - this event intends to take the films out of the social and cultural distribution network ghetto to which they were consigned. The festival will bring to light independent films which probe the world and the society in which we live with a humane and political awareness.

We intend to present the same film program in two different cities, Boston and New York, and to invite the filmmakers to meet a broad academic and film-loving public.

We want to create dialogue between academics and independent filmmakers from both sides of the Atlantic talking about their different working methods, questioning the notion of subject and highlighting film as a tool of emancipation.The purpose is also to talk about the social, political and economic conditions determining the creation and distribution of movies.

For this first edition, we have asked for the patronage of a filmmaker whose films are suffused with a freedom of expression and an independence of character in complete accord with our aspirations. Charles Burnett, author of “Killer Of Sheep” immediately responded to our request, emphasizing artistic lineage over and above the frontiers between the new generation of filmmakers and those who were the pioneers of the counter-culture.

Falling under the scope of both art and industry, cinema involves the mobilization of significant financial resources for production and distribution, creating a dependence of the artist on the backers and the distribution circuits dominated by notions of format and profitability. One of the consequences of this system is the reproduction in the cinematographic field of class differences, perpetuating a cinema presenting a bourgeois vision incapable of apprehending the daily life and anxieties of the less privileged classes. The issue of who depicts who becomes even more crucial.

The works that we have chosen are testimonies to the urgency of telling, of revealing gestures, proving that there is another way of making films based on resourcefulness, immediate energy, and strategies of bypassing financial restrictions.

Huge sections of the French population normally relegated to the status of an object in political and media “debate”, who, to all intents and purposes, are invisible to moviegoers except as extremely simplistic stereotypical figures, become social and political actors in the eye of filmmakers from a similar social background.

There is a natural empathy and identification creating a relationship of equality between the filmer and the filmed. It is a multicultural and complex France that is revealed through the images produced, underlining at the same time that identity is a collective construction, fluid by definition, which refuses attempts to reduce it to issues of blood lineage, territory or political exploitation.

In the context of a systemic crisis in capitalism linked to a crisis in our system of values, filmmakers make important statements about contemporary times. They invite us to think, surrounding reality differently through their images. And when the camera films on the fringe of a society, it is performing an act of emancipation.

WHAT THE FILMS ADVOCATE

FEATURES //

QU’ILS REPOSENT EN RÉVOLTE (DES FIGURES DE GUERRE)May They Rest In Revolt (Figures of Wars I) They hide and then run away, looking around anxiously to get away from those with the power to decide where and how they can live. Desperate, they build makeshift shelters. Filmmaker Sylvain George spent three years in Calais, between July 2007 and November 2010, observing the living conditions of the mostly undocumented migrants there. Shot in stark black and white, the film is a collage of striking fragments. Doggedly condemning the violence and inhumanity of institutions governed by police rules, George finds hope in the spirit of resistance and solidarity arising among local people to defend these outcasts unjustly deprived of their fundamental rights.

Director: Sylvain George Year : 2010 Duration : 154 minPicture : Sylvain George Editor : Sylvain George Sound : Sylvain George Production : Noir Production

+ Sylvain GEORGEFilmmaker and political activist. After studying philosophy, he made poetic, political and experimental film-essays, particularly on themes related to immigration.

RUE DES CITÉS Slums Road Adile is twenty. He lives in the slums of Paris. His life is a mix of hanging around in the hood and fixing motorbikes. One day, his grandfather disappears and he goes out in search of him…

Director: Carine May, Hakim ZouhaniCast: Tarek Aggoun, Mourad Boudaoud, Presylia Alves, Moussa Barry Year : 2012 Duration : 68 minScript : Carine May, Hakim ZouhaniPicture : Benoit Torti, Marianne Tardieu Editor : Nadège Kintzinger Sound : Philippe Schillinger, Clément MaleoMusic : Menahan Street Band, Otros Aires Production : Nouvelle Toile/ Hors Cadre

+ Carine MAYCarine MAY, was born on 19th August 1978. After spending her childhood and teenage years in Aubervilliers, she decided to study journalism, then moved on to making documentaries. She still lives in Aubervilliers. After holding radio and written press workshops for youngsters, she finally decided to turn to writing and set to work on her first film scripts. Her home town is a source of inspiration and its inhabitants provide her with material. For Carine, Rue des cités is the firstborn of a joint venture.

+ Hakim ZOUHANIHakim Zouhani, was born on 25th July 1978 in Aubervilliers, where he currently lives. After working on film sets in a variety of technical roles, he decided to organise various video workshops for youngsters from working-class neighborhoods. He likes to pass on his knowledge. He has wanted to tell stories for a long time. He took the plunge with Rue des cites and decided to become a producer at the same time.

FILMOGRAPHY

CARINE MAY (co-réal) BEO 16007 (2010)Ma langue au chat (2010)Partir pour écrire (2006)

HAKIM ZOUHANIÇa tourne à Oran (2009)Un pont, une histoire (2009)

FILMOGRAPHYLes Éclats (ma gueule, ma révolte, mon nom) (2011)L’Impossible – Pages Arrachées (2009)Ils nous tueront tous... (2009)N’entre pas sans violence dans la nuit (2005–2008) Série des Contrefeux (2006–2008)No Border (Aspettavo Che scendesse la sera) (2005–2008)

LA BM DU SEIGNEUR The Lord’s Ride There is turmoil in a small Yeniche community in rural northern France. Fred, the unofficial leader of the nomadic clan and the best car thief around, is going through a spiritual crisis. This giant of a man was given a white dog by a nocturnal visitor. Was it a divine apparition? Will Fred ever find his way? A true cinematic curiosity, Jean-Charles Hue’s film defies categorization, miraculously balancing on a treacherous tightrope between fiction and documentary, anthropology and spiritual metaphor.

Director: Jean-Charles HueCast: Frédéric Dorkel, Joseph ‘Jo’ Dorkel, Michaël DauberYear : 2010 Duration : 84 minScript: Jean-Charles HuePicture : Chloé Robert Editor : Isabelle Proust Sound : Benjamin Le LochProduction : Avalon Films

+ Jean-Charles HUE Video artist Jean-Charles Hue (1968, France) attended the art academy in Cergy-Pontoise in the north of France. He combines documentary and fiction in his work. He has participated in several solo and group exhibitions. Hue lives and works in Paris.

FILMOGRAPHYCame Vica (2009) L’œil de Fred (2007)Y’a plus d’os (2006)Pitbull carnaval (2006)Un Ange (2005)Quoi de neuf docteur (2004)Perdona mi Mama (2004)

DONOMA

A female teacher begins an ambiguous relationship with a student, an agnostic teenager is “called” by God, a photographer offers herself to a stranger: do we choose to love, do we choose to be loved?

Director: Djinn Carrenard Cast: Emilia Derou-Bernal, Laura Kpegli, Salomé Blechmans, Sékouba Doucouré, Vincente PerezYear : 2011 Duration : 133 minScript: Djinn CarrénardPicture : Djinn Carrénard Editor : Djinn Carrénard Sound : Djinn CarrénardProduction : Donomaprod/DACP Films

+ Djinn CARRENARDBorn in Haiti, Djinn Carrenard grew up in Togo and Guinea. After moving to Paris in 1998, he majored in philosophy. His filmography includes short films and various video clips. Donoma is his first feature film.

FILMOGRAPHYWhite Girl In HerPanty (2008) Le Nègre Joyeux (2007) De C à D (2005) Courts en Impro (2004)

L ’ AFRANCE

El Hadj is a postgraduate student living in Paris. Once he has finished his studies, he plans to return to Senegal and become a teacher. This is motivated by his political desire to rebuild the country’s infrastructure and not contribute to the ‘brain drain’ of intellectuals to Europe, as well as his personal desire to go home. But when he begins a love affair with Delphine (a white French woman), he enters into an existential crisis questioning not only his own positionality but that of Senegal, and indeed Africa. He is tired of being a foreigner in France and tired of the stereotypical labeling he experiences: ‘I’m sick of being a black. I’m Senegalese.’ But as a man who has spent six years of his twenties in France, what will he be in Senegal other than an outsider?

Director: Alain GomisCast: Djolof Mbengue, Delphine ZinggYear : 2001 Duration : 90 minScript : Alain GomisPicture : Pierre Stoeber Editor : Fabrice Rouaud Sound : Erwan Kerzanet, Raphaël Sohier, Fabrice Conesa AlcoleaMusic : Patrice GomisProduction : Mille et Une Productions

+ Alain GOMISAlain Gomis, the son of a French woman and a Senegalese man, studied film at the Sorbonne in Paris and has directed several short films. L’Afrance (2001), his debut feature film, was awarded prizes at Locarno and other film festivals. His second feature film, Andalucia. was also presented at a variety of film festivals (Venice, Rotterdam, etc.). Immigrant integration in multicultural Europe is one of the director’s favorite themes.

SHORT FILMS //

QUAND LE VENT TISSE LES FLEURSWhen the Wind Weaves FlowersIgnoring the world around him and being forgotten by the world seems to be what Mouss wants. Maybe to hide the wounds of the past. Then there’s Lollita, who disappears and reappears without rhyme or reason, while awaiting authorization to stay in this country, close to the man she loves.

Director: Bania MedjbarCast: Véronique Ruggia , Moussa Maskri, Camille ColombiesYear : 2003 Duration : 24 minScript: Bania Medjbar Picture : François Kuhnel Editor : Éric Renault Sound : Maxime GavaudanProduction : Libre d’Images

+ Bania MEDJBARBania came to cinema through documentary. After working as an assistant director for Jean-Pierre Thorn and Claire Simon, she directed Impressions de voyage and Mères Amère, both prizewinners at numerous festivals. She maintained her parallel career as an assistant to directors such as Merzak Allouache and Christophe Ruggia while continuing to direct.

FILMOGRAPHYJ’ai fait un rêve (2003)Marché aux puces (2000)Mères amères (1997) Impression de voyage (1996)Des enfants dans les arbres (2010)

FILMOGRAPHYAndalucia (2009) Petite Lumière (2003)Tout le monde peut se tromper (1998) Tourbillons (1999) Caramels et Chocolats (1996)

SOUS LE BLEUUnder the Overalls

A man persuades a young mechanic to sell him his work overalls for a fancy dress party. The father of the mechanic, employed in the same garage, witnesses this transaction by chance. He is appalled that his son has accepted the deal. He takes him aside and a quarrel breaks out.

Director: David OelhoffenCast: Nicolas Giraud, Patrick Bonnel, Yves VerhoevenYear : 2004 Duration : 21 minScript: David OelhoffenPicture : Lubomir Bakchev Editor : Sophie Bousquet-Foures Sound : Jérôme AghionProduction : Kaléo Films

+ David OELHOFFENDavid Oelhoffen was born in 1968. After working in production, he wrote and directed his first short film “Le mur“ (The Wall) in 1996. He went on to write and direct a mid-length feature “In my Absence“ and three other shorts including “Sous le bleu” (Under the Overalls), presented at the 2004 Venice Film Festival and nominated at the 2006 César awards. In 2006, he directed his first feature length film, “Nos retrouvailles”. He is currently working on his second feature film “Loin des hommes” adapted from a short story by Albert Camus (Sopadin Award Best Screenplay 2010).

FILMOGRAPHYNos retrouvailles (2006)Échafaudages (2004)En mon absence (2002)Big Bang (1999)

JE M ’ APPELLEMy Name Is

Portraits of men who have been the victims of acts of violence, thus denouncing the brutality of Western societies in the 20th century. These men of all ages and nationalities describe the severity of their condition. All of them have experienced the same thing: oppression.

Director: Stéphane ElmadjianCast : Féodor Atkine, Michel DebraneYear : 2001 Duration : 17 minScript : Stéphane ElmadjianPicture : Hugues Poulain Editor : Loïc Jaspard, Adam Wolny Sound : Adam Wolny, Tristan EssyadProduction : Lardux Films

+ Stéphane ELMADJIANBorn into a family of filmmakers, Stéphane Elmadjian (1966, Paris, France) was initiated in repertory and militant cinema (Joris Ivans, Armand Gatti, Peter Watkins, Andreï Tarkovski, etc.) at an early age. At the beginning of the 1990s, he founded the production company Lardux Films with some of his high-school friends, taking part in a hundred or so short films and directing around 10 of them himself.

FILMOGRAPHYOn nous crache tout (2010)Traces (2009)La Rumeur, Casey vs Zone Libre: L’angle Mort – Clip (2009)Freedub 2 - La bourse et la vie (2009)

KAMEL S’EST SUICIDÉ SIX FOIS, SON GRAND-PÈRE EST MORTKamel Committed Suicide Six Times, His Grandfather Died

One evening, my grandfather Tahar dies in palliative care. Zouina, his stepdaughter is there. Aziz, his son is there. Fayçal is there. I am there. God isn’t there? Kamel arrives too late.

Director: Soufiane AdelCast: Aziz Adel, Farid Adel, Fayçal Adel, Jean-Marie Lebouc, Kamel Adel, Soufiane Adel, Zouina AdelYear : 2007 Duration : 9 minScript: Soufiane Adel Picture : Angela Terrail-Adel Editor : Angela Terrail-Adel Sound : Thomas BuetProduction : G.R.E.C. (Groupe de Recherche et d’Essai Cinématographique)

>Soufiane ADELA graduate of the National School of Industrial Design in Paris, Soufiane Adel been scenographer for different cultural events and institutions (the Photography Encounters of Arles, the Telemar cultural center in Rio de Janeiro, etc.) He has also directed documentary and fiction shorts which have had major festival exposure. In 2007, he was chief sound engineer on a documentary by Angela Terrail.

FILMOGRAPHYSur la tête de Bertha Boxcar co-réalisation avec Angela Terrail - (2010)La Cassette (2006)Nuit Close (2004)Le cousin d’Algérie (2002)

NOLA

A special day in the life of Nola, her first time on parole after years of detention. The portrait of a woman around whom the world is breaking down.

Director : Askia TraoréCast : Mata GabinYear : 2010 Duration : 26 minScript : Askia TraoréPicture : David Chizallet Editor : Frédéric Baillehaiche Sound : Renaud DuguetMusic : Thomas BoffelliProduction : Abbel Films/ Velvet films

>Askia TRAOREOriginally from Chad, Askia Traoré grew up in Lyon, France. After working in theatre for four years, he decided to make the leap to the capital and turned to film production. He has worked on various projects, promoting both fiction and documentary films. Nola is his first film as a director.

company Lardux Films with some of his high-school friends, taking part in a hundred or so short films and directing around 10 of them himself. Stéphane’s films are unusual, generally devoid of narration and adopt poetic and sensitive forms that elicit a disturbing emotional state. He intuitively seeks to show how the mind works. By combining the innermost with politics, he attempts to create empathy, an acknowledgement of suffering and injustice.Through feelings and emotions, he seeks to go beyond words and intellect alone. Stéphane’s films are visceral, radical and complete. In 2002, he made the film “Je m’appelle”, based on a play by Enzo Cormann. The film was highly successful at various festivals and won numerous prizes worldwide. At one of the prize-giving ceremonies, he said: “I made this film in memory of my grandmother whose suffering as a survivor of the Armenian genocide in Turkey deeply influenced my childhood. This text is an acknowledgement of the true heroes of the 20th century: striking workers, refugees, exiles and all the wretched on earth… I’ve used all my filmmaking know-how to put this voice into sound and vision, again and again”.

SOUFIANE ADEL //Soufiane Adel was born in Algeria in 1981. He came to France when he was eight years old. He discovered film while studying design at ENSCI - Les Ateliers. He spent his childhood immersed in the films of Jean Claude Van Damme and New Hollywood. He encountered Italian neorealism and experimental film at the age of 20, and thus began a long autodidactic, haphazard and compulsive love of film.In 2004, he decided to film his father, asking him to recreate a scene they had experienced together. It was his first short film: Nuits closes, a cinematographic achievement filmed in one night which did the tour of the festivals. This was followed by La Cassette then Kamel s’est suicidé six fois, son père est mort. In 2009, he began to co-direct his films with Angela Terrail, with whom he has been working since La Cassette. They directed Sur la tête de Bertha Boxcar and are currently preparing a full-length film, a contemporary adaptation of the Jack London novel Martin Eden.

MEETINGS //Three French filmmakers will be travelling to Boston and New York; Sylvain George, Stéphane Elmadjian and Soufiane Adel, will be joining our godfather, Charles Burnett, who will be presenting his film “Killer of Sheep”.

FRENCH FILMMAKERS

SYLVAIN GEORGE // Sylvain George (1968, Vaulx-en-Velin, France) studied philosophy and worked as a social worker until he turned to filmmaking in 2004. His work, greatly influenced by the thinking of Walter Benjamin, combines militant commitment with formal experiment. “The idea”, he says, “is to make films that take a stand and assert a political position, and at the same time not to separate content from form; to be formally demanding and to manage to define one’s own view and grammar as a filmmaker.” Far from any form of didacticism or dogmatism, his films – from short “contrefeux” filmed with a mobile phone to elaborate feature-length documentaries – depicting and allegorizing the struggles of the “nouveaux damnés”, trapped between the rule and the exception: the stateless, the clandestine, the precarious. His most recent work, the impressive Qu’ils reposent en révolte (des figures de guerre), gives an account of the living conditions of migrants in Calais over a period of three years (2007-2010). “Politically speaking, it is about standing up, contesting these grey zones, these spaces or cracks like Calais standing somewhere between the exception and the rule, beyond the scope of law, where law is suspended, where individuals are deprived, stripped of their most fundamental rights. And all this while creating ‘true’ exceptional states through some dialectic reversal. Space-time continuums where beings and things are fully restored to what they were, are, will be, could be or could have been”. Rebellion and emancipation are at the heart of George’s films, which find true politics in the gestures, cries and bodies of those who are within the dominant socio-economical order considered as “surplus”: included, but not belonging.

STÉPHANE ELMADJIAN //Born into a family of filmmakers, Stéphane Elmadjian (1966, Paris, France) was initiated in repertory and militant cinema (Joris Ivans, Armand Gatti, Peter Watkins, Andreï Tarkovski, etc.) at an early age. His mother, a film editor, often took him to editing rooms, mixing studios and film sets. After high school, he worked as an assistant editor on full-length films for 10 years, before becoming an editor himself. At the beginning of the 1990s, he founded the production

THE GODFATHER //CHARLES BURNETT //

Born in Mississippi in 1944, Charles Burnett was raised in Los Angeles, where in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s he attended U.C.L.A.’s graduate film program alongside fellow African-American movie innovators Larry Clark, Julie Dash, Haile Gerima, and Billy Woodberry. Motivated to action by years of one-dimensional black stereotypes and story lines in Hollywood features, Burnett has endeavored to bring to the screen a deeply personal, realistic portrayal of contemporary African-American existence, drawing his inspiration from the work of the Italian neorealist movement.“I don’t think I’m capable of answering problems that have been here for many years. But I think the best I can do is present them in a way where one wants to solve these problems.” — Charles Burnett

Charles Burnett submitted his first feature, Killer of Sheep, as his thesis for his MFA in film at UCLA. The film was shot on location near his family’s home in Watts in a series of weekends on a shoestring budget of less than $10,000, most of which was grant money.With a mostly amateur cast (consisting of Burnett’s friends and acquaintances), much handheld camera work, episodic narrative and gritty documentary-style cinematography, Killer of Sheep has been compared by film critics and scholars to Italian neorealist films like Vittorio De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief and Roberto Rossellini’s Paisan. However, Burnett cites Basil Wright’s Songs of Ceylon and Night Mail and Jean Renoir’s The Southerner as his main influences.In 1981, Killer of Sheep received the Critic’s Award at the Berlin International Film Festival. In 1990, the Library of Congress declared it a national treasure and placed it among the first 50 films entered in the National Film Registry for its historical significance. In 2002, the National Society of Film Critics selected the film as one of the 100 Essential Films of all time.

KILLER OF SHEEP

Stan works in drudgery at a slaughterhouse. His personal life is drab. Dissatisfaction and ennui keep him unresponsive to the needs of his adoring wife, and he must struggle against influences which would dishonor and endanger him and his family.

Director: Charles BurnettCast: Henry G. Sanders, Kaycee Moore, Charles BracyYear : 1977 Duration : 75 min Editor : Charles Burnett Picture : Charles BurnettSound : Charles Bracy Production : Charles Burnett

FILMOGRAPHYMy Brother’s Wedding (1983)To Sleep with Anger (1990)The Glass Shield (1993)The Annihilation of Fish (1999)Warming by the Devil’s Fire (2003)Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property (2003)Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation (2007)

The festival will begin in Boston on 5th April, with exchanges in different universities, before continuing in New York. The directors will talk with students and teachers about their relationship with filmmaking as an emancipatory tool and a reflection of our societies. They will discuss the status of the “independent filmmaker” and what this means in terms of production and distribution constraints. How can one be real in the eyes of the public while existing on the sidelines and developing a view that resists any kind of formatting?

SALEM MEKURIA // Wellesley CollegeSalem Mekuria is the Luella LaMer Professor of Women’s Studies in the Art Department at Wellesley College where she teaches film history and video production. She is also an independent writer, producer, director, videographer, and video installation artist. Her award winning documentary films and video installations feature Ethiopian subjects and have been shown internationally.

CODRUTA MORARI // Wellesley College Codruţa Morari is Assistant Professor of French and Media Studies at Wellesley College where she teaches courses in French film theory and history, with a focus on the aesthetics and politics of post-WWII French cinema. Her research is in film spectatorship and examines the relationship between the cinematic apparatus and the cognitive, affective, and ideological basis of film perception.

JOHN GIANVITO // Emerson CollegeProfessor Gianvito is a filmmaker, curator, and critic. Recipient of multiple awards, his work include the feature films The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein, Profit motive and the whispering wind, and Vapor Trail (Clark). He has taught film production and film history at the University of Massachusetts/Boston, Rhode Island School of Design, and Boston University, and was film curator for 5 years at the Harvard Film Archive. In 2001 he was made a Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture. Currently he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Visual & Media Arts at Emerson College.

CLAIRE ANDRADE-WATKINS // Emerson CollegeDr. Claire Andrade-Watkins is a historian, filmmaker and 2nd generation American of Cape Verdean descent. Her scholarship focuses on French and Portuguese language African cinema. She was an Associate Producer on Odyssey, a National PBS anthropology and archaeology documentary series, and Assistant to the Producer on Sankofa, an internationally acclaimed feature film on slavery by filmmaker Haile Gerima. She is the founder and President of SPIA Media Productions, Inc., a production and distribution company specializing in media from the Africana Diaspora.

VÉRÉNA PARAVEL // Harvard UniversityVéréna Paravel is a filmmaker and anthropologist working at the Sensory Ethnography Lab and Film Study Center at Harvard University. She is also a lecturer in the dept anthropology at Harvard. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and explores evanescent forms of intimacy, mediation and space in a variety of media. Her films include Foreign Parts (with J.P. Sniadecki, 2010), Interface Series (2009-10) and 7 Queens (2008). Foreign Parts won seven international awards, including Best First Feature Award and Special Jury Award at the Locarno Film Festival (2010), and the Grand Prize at Punto de Vista (2011).

LUCIEN CASTAING-TAYLOR // Harvard UniversityLucien Castaing-Taylor recently recorded Sweetgrass (with Ilisa Barbash, 2009), an unsentimental elegy at once to the American West and to the 10,000 years of uneasy accommodation between post-Paleolithic humans and animals. Previous works include In and Out of Africa (with Ilisa Barbash, 1992) and Made in USA (with Ilisa Barbash, 1990). Castaing-Taylor’s work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, has been exhibited at the Berlin Kunsthalle, the London Institute of Contemporary Arts, Marian Goodman Gallery and the X-Initiative, and has formed the subject of symposia at the British Museum, the Musée du quai Branly and the Smithsonian Institution. His films and videos have screened at the AFI, Berlin, Locarno, New York, Toronto and other film festivals, as well as at the Viennale, Punto de Vista and the Flaherty seminar.

PHILIP WATTS // Columbia UniversityPhil Watts received his BA at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1982 and his PhD from Columbia University in 1991. His research and teaching focus on 20th-century French literature and film and the relation between politics and aesthetics. He has studied how literature and film participate in democratic formations, and he has published articles on Jean Genet, Jacques Rancière, Roland Barthes and film, Jacques Rivette and the cold war, and the films of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet.

SHANNY PEER // Columbia UniversityShanny Peer received her Ph.D. from New York University’s interdisciplinary Institute of French Studies in 1992. She taught French Studies for ten years, first at the University of Vermont and then at NYU. In 2000, she joined the French-American Foundation as Director of Policy Programs. She worked briefly at Families and Work Institute before coming to Columbia University as the Director of the Maison Française in September 2009.

UNIVERSITIES HOST FILMMAKERS //

VICTORIA EBIN // Columbia UniversityVictoria Ebin is an anthropologist who has worked in Senegal for many years. She carried out research among Senegalese street vendors in the US and France and spent several years in Senegal where she studied the development of international trade by members of the Mouride brotherhood in Dakar’s central market. She has written articles on Senegalese commerçants and made a film, La Baraka des commerçants mourides, for Arte/RTBF. She is currently working in the Physics Departmentat Columbia University on the history of a science education project.

ANN L. STOLER // The New School For Social ResearchProfessor Ann Stoler is an expert in colonial cultures, critical race theory, gender studies, political economy, historical methodologies, and Southeast Asia. Her current research is on the politics of comparison on North American empires and postcolonial studies; bourgeois Europe and colonial exiles. Her most recent publication is entitled Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense (2008).

MIRIAM TICKTIN // The New School For Social ResearchMiriam Ticktin is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the New School for Social Research; she did her doctoral work in Cultural Anthropology (Stanford) and Medical Anthropology (EHESS, Paris). For her first book, Casualties of Care: Immigration and the Politics of Humanitarianism (2011) she conducted research in France with undocumented immigrants, following their quest for basic human rights. The book reveals the (unintended) consequences of a form of politics enacted in the name of care and protection, under threat of emergency.

NITIN SAWHNEY // The New School For Social ResearchNitin Sawhney is Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the New School for Social Research; his research, teaching and creative practice engages the critical role of technology, artistic interventions and DIY cultures among communities in contested spaces. He recently began a pilot research study in the West Bank and Gaza on the role of participatory media for resilience and civic agency among children and adolescents living in conditions of conflict and crisis. Nitin is currently completing a documentary film, Flying Paper, about the participatory culture of kite making among children in Gaza, with support from National Geographic.

FILM SCREENINGS & DISCUSSIONS// BOSTON (April 5-8, 2012) BRATTLE THEATRE The Brattle shows the best in classic, cutting-edge, foreign, and art-house films. They also show first-run films and new releases of classic films, but their specialty is a repertory programming format consisting of films from a particular director, genre, or subject shown over the course of a week, or on the same weekday throughout the month. The Brattle Theatre • 40 Brattle St., Cambridge MA 02138 • Harvard Square • 617 876-6837 • info@brattlefilm.org

- Tickets : $10 - Festival pass: $35- Discussions at Universities will be free

Thursday, April 5, 2012 1:30pm - 4:20pm : Wellesley College, with Salem Mekuria6:00pm - 9:00pm : Emerson College, with John Gianvito and Claire Andrade-Watkins

Friday, April 6, 2012 1:00pm - 4:00pm : Harvard University, with Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel5:00pm - 6:30pm : Wellesley College (Maison Française) with Marie-Paule Tranvouez and Codruta Morari7:30pm: Brattle Theatre, Killer of Sheep Followed by a discussion with Charles Burnett 9:30pm: Brattle Theatre, Rue des cités (slums road)

Saturday, April 7, 2012 2:00pm: Brattle Theatre, Qu’ils reposent en révolte (may they rest in revolt) 5:00 pm: Brattle Theatre, La BM du seigneur (the lord’s ride) 7:00pm: Brattle Theatre, Short Films Followed by a discussion with Stéphane Elmadjian & Soufiane Adel9:30pm: Brattle Theatre, Rue des cités (slums road)

Sunday, April 8, 2012 1:00pm: Brattle Theatre, L’Afrance 3:00pm: Brattle Theatre, Donoma 6:00pm: Brattle Theatre, Qu’ils reposent en révolte Followed by a discussion with Sylvain George9:30pm: Brattle Theatre, Short Films

NEW YORK (April 9-12, 2012)BAMcinématekBAMcinématek presents new and rarely seen contemporary films, classics from cinema history, work by local artists, and festivals of films from around the world, often with special appearances by directors, actors, and other guests. Over its nearly decade-long history, BAMcinématek has not only presented major retrospectives by well-known filmmakers such as Michelangelo Antonioni, but it has also introduced New York audiences to contemporary artists such as Nuri Bilge Ceylan. BAMcinématek has also featured innumerable guests during this period, including Gena Rowlands, Robert Altman, Jim Jarmusch, Milos Forman, Jonathan Demme, Larry Clark, and many more. BAM • 30 Lafayette Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11217-1430 • (718) 636 4100 • BAM.org

- Tickets : $10- Festival pass : $35- Discussions at Universities will be free

Monday, April 9, 2012 3:00pm - 6:00pm : The New School For Social Research, with Ann L. Stoler, Miriam Ticktin and Nitin Sawhney8:15pm: Association des Sénégalais d’Amérique, L’Afrance Followed by a discussion with Victoria Ebin

Tuesday, April 10, 2012 2:00pm - 5:00pm : Medgar Evers, with Miles McAfee6:50pm: BAM, Killer of Sheep Followed by a discussion with Charles Burnett 9:30pm: BAM, La BM du seigneur (the lord’s ride)

Wednesday, April 11, 2012 5:00pm - 8:00pm : Columbia University (Maison Française), with Shanny Peer and Philip Watts 4:30pm: BAM, Donoma 7:15pm: BAM, Qu’ils reposent en révolte Followed by a discussion with Sylvain George

Thursday, April 12, 2012 4:30pm: BAM, L’Afrance 6:50pm: BAM, Short Films Followed by a discussion with Stéphane Elmadjian & Soufiane Adel 9:30pm: BAM, Rue des cités (slums road)

ACKNOWLEDGMENT //This Festival wouldn’t have been possible without the support and precious help of the following people:

Sophie Cilpa, Odile Cazenave, Michele Oshima, Salem Mekuria, John Gianvito, Delphine Selles, Muriel Guidoni and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, Anne Miller and the Cultural Services of the General Consulate of France in Boston, French Institute : Institut Français, Antoine Treuille, Thibault Chartron, Dana Arifi and Lindsey Abramowitz of the French American Foundation, Shanny Peer, Bruce Clarke, Alice Pétillot, Ann L. Stoler, Alice Cameron, Neary Adeline Hay, Labesse Maallem, Mathieu Lopez, Ahmat Mahamat.

We would like to thank the teachers who so generously gave of their time, the hosts and participants in the roundtables, discussions and screenings and debates, and the staff of the Brattle Theatre and BAMcinématek.

THE FOUNDERS

ALAIN KASSANDA : born in Kinshasa, Alain also known as Apkass is one of the founder members of the poetry collective Chant d’encre, largely inspired by role-models like The Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron. Produced in 2008, his first LP, En marchant vers le soleil, swings between spoken word, jazz and hip-hop. Since 2003, he has also been staging cycles of movie showings in various Parisian theaters, including the evening performances “Raconte-moi un court” establishing a connection between poetry and short-films. Alain is also the film programmer for the movie-theater Les 39 marches in Sevran, near Paris, and created the festival “A hauteur d’enfant”.

PASCAL TESSAUD : Pascal grew up in suburban Paris. He directed several short fiction films, and the documentary Slam, ce qui nous brûle .

FINANCIAL SUPPORTFrench American Foundation C i n é 2 0 0 0 FA C E

Cultural Services of the French Embassy Wellesley College

Cultural Services of the General Consulate Columbia Maison Française of France in Boston Emerson College

ORGANIZATION //

Association O’riginesAlain Kassandaapkass@hotmail.comwww.ghettoutfilms.com

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