Sylvain George (FR) / Four Ways from Sundown
16.09.22
News
Kino ARMATA has the pleasure of organizing a film showcase of French philosopher and filmmaker Sylvain George between 27-29 September 2022.
PROGRAM
27 September
19:00h
Joli Mai (2017), 8 min.
L’implossible – Pages Arrachees (2009), 104 min.
21:00h
Q&A with director Sylvain George
28 September
19:00h
Nuit Obscure (2022), 265 min.
29 September
19:00h
No Border (2005-2008), 23 min.
Les Eclats (2011), 84 min.
21:00h
TALK between Sylvain George and Sezgin Boynik
Sylvain George's showcase is a part of Kino ARMATA’s Four Ways from Sundown programme, curated by Sezgin Boynik, Alush Gashi and Vigan Nimani for Manifesta 14 Prishtina, also featuring Felix Kubin, Jean-François Pauvros & Jean-Marc Montera and Anna Thew. Four Ways from Sundown is supported by Foundation Manifesta 13 Marseille.
ABOUT SYLVAIN GEORGE
Sylvain George was born in 1968 in Lyon, France. He holds degrees in Philosophy, Right and Political Sciences, Cinema (EHESS Sorbonne). Since 2006 he produces and directs documentary films on the themes of immigration and social movements.
Among his cinematic works are:
The Impossible – Pieces of Fury (2009)
May They Rest in Revolt (Figures of Wars I) (2010) / Award of the best film at the Filmmaker Film Festival 2010 and Bafici 2011; Award of the jury Valdivia International Film Festival; Mention of honora at Pesaro Film festival; FIPRESCI award
The Outbursts (my mouth, my revolt, my name) (2011) / Award best film at the Torino Film festival 2011
Vers Madrid - The Burning Bright (2013) / Award Audience at Subversive Film Festival en 2013; Mention of the jury MedFilmFestival 2013
Paris Est Une Fête - Un Film en 18 Vagues (2017) / Award of Mention of the jury at Lima Independiente International Film Festival 2017 and the Prize of youth at the Filmmaker Film Festival 2017
He collaborated with artists who are engaged in their art and politics, such as Archie Shepp, William Parker, Valérie Dréville, Okkyung Lee, John Edwards, John Butcher, Serge Teyssot-Gay, Sylvain Luc, etc.
His work was honored at the French Cinematek (2008), Filmmaker Film festival (2008), Doc’s Kingdom (2009), Subversive Film Festival (2010), Cinémathèque de Lubljana (2011), Festival Courtisane (2011), Festival Cinemigrante (2011), Punto de vista (2012), Lima Independent Film Festival (2013), Mediterranean Film Festival Roma (2013), Milano Film Festival (2013), Festival du Film Français/Cinémathèque nationale Équateur (2013), Fondation Gulbenkian France (2014), Cinemigrante Bogota (2015), Fronteira-Festival Internacional Do film Documentario E Experimental (2015), VII Semana dos Realizadores (2015), FIDOCS (2016), FORUM DOC (2017), Musea Reina Sofia (2018), EDOC (2019), Pupille Kino in der Uni (2020).
In 2012 he was a guest artist at the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar. He teaches at the Institut de Sciences Politiques de Paris (IEP) and gives masterclasses and workshops all over the world (FEMIS, Punto de Vista, Instituto Politécnico de Tomar, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon (ENS Lyon), Lima Independente Film Festival, Filmmaker Film Festival/Milano Film Festival, FIDBA).
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JOLI MAI (2017)
Pretty May (Those who have killed less than a hundred times, throw the first stone at me). Video. Black and white. Noir Production. 8 min.
At the end of the demonstration of 1 May 2016, the police use force.
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L’IMPOSSIBLE – PAGES ARRACHEES (2009)
THE IMPOSSIBLE – PEACES OF FURY
(Songs from the protests)
Placed under the auspices of Rimbaud, Lautréamont, Dostoievski and Benjamin, of free jazz and punk, this film endeavors to testify to the iniquitous policies which shape our time, to the "infernal" character of certain political lives or black bodies (that migrants/immigrants, workers, unemployed, students, etc.). It operates, as a minority, a critical stasis of mythical and majority realities; and works on the body the question of revolt and insurrection: overflow, disidentification, undecidable reconfiguration... impossible.
The film is divided into five parts:
1. THE WOOD OF THE SHIPS (I burn properly!)
2009, Super 8, Black and White and Color, 15 min., prod: Noir Production.
Calais, desolate city. Whiteness of the snow that covers the city. Black and tutelary shadows, cross and Belfry, which dominate it. Scarlet fires that envelop and burn her. Figures and faces of people who come back from afar. Migrants. Outcasts. Variation on calcined and infernal landscapes and political lives: the black bodies.
2. BALLAD FOR A CHILD (We won't kill you any more than if you were a corpse)
2009, Super 8, Color, 26 min, prod: Noir Production.
Calais, desolate city. Evocation: In a small wood, the "jungle", a young man who comes from afar, from a Middle East at war, is murdered. It was in December 2008. And it is a whole world, political, which gives up the ghost, to whom we will give up the ghost. Invocation: A young man passes by who comes from afar. And his words, traces and survivals, like a song, come from even further afield: from the chasms, from the sea and the deserts, from oblivion, from the infinite edges. A young man passes by who comes from afar, like a new Orpheus, political, black and rebellious. An impossible young man that nothing and no one can now stop...
3. ARMED AGAINST JUSTICE (Burn! Burn! Burn!)
2009, video, black and white and color, 29 min, prod: Noir Production
Paris. Demonstration of March 19, 2009. Civil servants, students, precarious, undocumented immigrants, unemployed, retired, pound the pavement. Until this one burns, between rage and anger; and that voices are delivered by inscribing themselves in time. Until the State represses, violently and arbitrarily; and that innocent bodies be condemned.
4. THE TIME OF THE ASSASSINS (Fire Music)
2009, video, black and white and color, 17 min, prod: Noir Production
Paris. Demonstration of May 1, 2009. Pursuit, repetition of the insurrectionary gesture: "Peace in the cottages, War in the castles". After a few centuries, the Hôtel de Ville in Paris was again occupied, and the Council of Paris reinvested by a revolutionary assembly. Invocation: the Commune of Paris. Evocation: the people who come. Here is the time, come again...
5. YOU WILL REMAIN HYENA ETC. (The book of the damned)
2009, 16mm, Black and White and Color, 17mn, prod: Noir Production.
With the participation of Lionel Soukaz and Tripak. Like an infernal circle.
Variation on treachery and denial, the spitting of the renegade as a medal, "pension funds" as becoming, from the book "Letters to those who passed from the Mao collar to Rotary" by Guy Hocquenghem, and films by Lionel Soukaz and/or with Guy Hocquenghem.
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NUIT OBSCURE (2022)
Nuit obscure – Feuillets sauvages (Les brûlants, les obstinés), 265 min, Locarno Film Festival 2022
Melilla, a Spanish enclave in Morocco, is a land border between the African continent and Europe. A buffer zone where European migration policies, their challenges and their consequences can be read and seen. A place towards which converge, from Morocco, “those who burn”, the “harragas”, minors and young adults, eager to reach Europe. They have nothing to lose but wanting to live to the end.
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NO BORDER (Aspettavo Che Scendesse La Sera), Super 8. Black and white. 23 min. NOIR PRODUCTION 2005-2008
Paris, Open City. Dizziness commemorations. Ruins. Winds. Tides. Young migrants Iraqis, Afghans, Iranians roam the streets between soup kitchens and camps. Consequently, they put in crisis the order of things and bourgeois society. An emancipation occurs, deeply melancholy, elegiac: redefining the concept of revolution by a new concept of history.
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LES ECLATS (2011), 84 min.
THE OUTBURSTS (My face, my revolt, my name)
BEST INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY, TORINO FILM FESTIVAL 2011
Fragments of voices, laughter and rage; snatches of words, images and memory; the words near and far, from yesterday, from today; the breathe of the wind, the gesture of the sun at the sunset, the reflections red-blood; the raids of the police, processions warriors, court of injustice.
For a map of the violence inflicted on migrants, the repetition of the colonialism, and the unacceptability of the "world as it is."