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Atelier Denis Gheerbrandt
The “La République Marseille” workshop, programmed
all day and evening on 8th March, highlights
the path running through the work that Denis
Gheerbrant has been doing for four years now in
Marseilles: mainly medium-length films that he has
shot, single-handed as usual, in the city’s nooks and
crannies, those places where society’s aspirations
take shape and where a population is asserting itself
under the name “quartiers nords” (north districts).
The morning starts off with a short film, an offbeat view of the Marseilles of factories and docks by one of its children. Then a docker: after a work injury, he returns to his job prematurely, enamoured of his Estaque district, a small port area in north Marseilles, which he sees as threatened. A few steps away, some former Communists, expelled from the party, have taken over the premises of a local brass band, where lottery players now try their luck and local youngsters learn operatic tunes.
In the afternoon: women, former factory workers, oppose the selling off of their housing estate, which would wipe out all they have built together. And then, in contrast, a monumental housing estate built in the 60s that is falling into ruins. Tucked away in a corner is a tiny and appropriately named “community centre”.
Brief encounters barely drawn, like sketches of a city devastated by industrialisation, open a discussion with Patrick Leboutte, the filmmaker and the audience.
The evening rounds off with the feature film, La République: the Rue de la République is being sold off in slices, but there is still the republic of the men and women who refuse to disappear and, through this refusal, reveal themselves.
The morning starts off with a short film, an offbeat view of the Marseilles of factories and docks by one of its children. Then a docker: after a work injury, he returns to his job prematurely, enamoured of his Estaque district, a small port area in north Marseilles, which he sees as threatened. A few steps away, some former Communists, expelled from the party, have taken over the premises of a local brass band, where lottery players now try their luck and local youngsters learn operatic tunes.
In the afternoon: women, former factory workers, oppose the selling off of their housing estate, which would wipe out all they have built together. And then, in contrast, a monumental housing estate built in the 60s that is falling into ruins. Tucked away in a corner is a tiny and appropriately named “community centre”.
Brief encounters barely drawn, like sketches of a city devastated by industrialisation, open a discussion with Patrick Leboutte, the filmmaker and the audience.
The evening rounds off with the feature film, La République: the Rue de la République is being sold off in slices, but there is still the republic of the men and women who refuse to disappear and, through this refusal, reveal themselves.