Docs & Talks Week-End
Banlieues with Attitude
As part of I Kiffe NY - French Urban Culture Festival
The Banlieues: A “Sensitive Urban Area”
Together with a special film screening, scholars address one of France’s most pressing social issues: the negative connotations surrounding the banlieues, their possible sources, and the challenges they present for France’s republican values.
Documentary
The Bad Guys / Les Mauvais Garçons (2004. Color. 90 min.)
Directed by David Carr-Brown, Pierre Bourgeois, Patricia Bodet. Scriptwriter: Christophe Nick. A critical look at immigration and urban planning policies over the past four decades through the intimate portrait of the cité de la Commanderie in Creil.
Debate with Daniel Sabbagh, Senior Research Fellow at the Center of International Studies and Research (CERI -Sciences-Po) in Paris, a specialist in anti-discrimination policies and multiculturalism; Michel Wievorka, one of the most renowned sociologists in France noted for his work on violence, racism, and social movements; Christophe Nick, journalist, producer, and Program Director of “Chroniques de la violence ordinaire,” a series of documentaries on the banlieues.
Moderated by Alec G. Hargreaves, Director of the Winthrop-King Institute for Contemporary French and Francophone Studies at Florida State University
Urban Talk: Rap, Slam (“Spoken Word”) and Verbal Expressions from the French Banlieues
Artists, writers, poets, slammeurs, rappers and experimental artists
are forever using new words to articulate complex new cultural
realities, inadequately grasped by more traditional means of
expression. In a
conversation between scholars, this inventive, often subversive
urban vocabulary proves to be a fertile ground for analysis.
Documentary
Slam that Burns / Slam , ce qui nous brûle (2007. Color. 52 min.)
Directed by Pascal Tessaud. A documentary on the spoken word movement in France, through the portrait of various slammeurs.
Debate with Anthony Pecqueux, Doctor in Sociology specialized in popular music; two slammeurs, John Banzaï and Souleymane Diamanka, and Joy Sorman, author of the novel Du bruit. Moderated by Vinay Swamy, Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Vassar College, New York. Spoken word performances will also take place.
The Banlieues in the Media: Fantasy or Reality?
The media representation of the banlieues is a pressing issue as it risks stereotyping a nuanced and complex cultural phenomenon. How do banlieues inhabitants, artists, and scholars fight against this biased picture of reality?
Documentaries
La Comune (2007. Color. 52 min.) Directed by Philippe Triboit. Scriptwriter: Abdel Raouf Dafri. La Commune, a dark, controversial TV -series, depicts life in a banlieue where unemployment, drug trafficking, and organized crime are part of daily life.
The Image of the Neighborhood / L’image du quartier (2001. Color. 12 min.) Directed by Les Engraineurs. Les Engraineurs is an association created by the inhabitants of a Parisian banlieue (the cité des Courtillières), which uses short films to illuminate the rich realities of their often misunderstood neighborhood.
Debate with Frédéric Valabrègue , art historian and author of several works of fiction based in Marseilles; Jérôme Polidor, filmmaker of Les Engraineurs; Abdel Raouf Dafri, scriptwriter of La Commune. Moderated by Mark Dery, journalist, author of several essays on media, and professor in the Department of Journalism at New York University.
Art and the Banlieues: Culture Beyond the Block
This panel will consider the diverse ways that urban art forms, highly
influenced by American cultures of transgression, take root as important
cultural movements in France, as well as how traditional artistic institutions relate to them.
Documentary
Under the Concrete Slab, the Sun / Sous la dalle, le soleil (2006. Color. 51 min.) Directed by Franck Sanson. A portrait of the cité de Mantes-la-Jolie focusing on its cultural center.
Debate with Malik Chibane, the filmmaker of Hexagone and Voisins, voisines; Karim Amellal, author of several books including the novel Cités à comparaître, professor at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris; Kader Attou, Artistic Director of Accrorap, a French company that mixes hip-hop and contemporary dance. Moderated by Jonathan Buchsbaum, Professor of Media Studies at City University of New York.
Special Screening and U.S. Première: 9/3, History of a Territory / 9/3, Histoire d’un teritoire
A new documentary directed by Yamina Benguigui, director of the acclaimed films Immigrant Memories (1997), Inch’Allah Dimanche (2001), and The Glass Ceiling (2004). 9/3, History of a Territory depicts the evolution of département 93, a volatile banlieue located in the Parisian suburbs, from 1850 up to the riots of 2005. The film seeks to explain why this area is so emblematic of the social problems plaguing France and why it, as a banlieue or “cité-ghetto,” projects such a frightening image. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the director.
Where / When
Dates:
Tinker Auditorium
French Institute Alliance Française
55 East 59th Street
New York, NY 10022
Written on Sep. 05, 08
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