26/12/2011

A narrative feature and a documentary focusing on the same subject: the “indignant” movement which has spread across Europe in 2011 after the publication of Stéphane Hessel’s book Indignez-vous! Time for Outrage. Directed by iconoclastic helmer Tony Gatlif, Indignados and Indignez-vous! ought to get a good reception from upcoming major festivals (with, first up, the possibility of a screening at Berlin) for a filmmaker who won Best Director Award in 2004 at Cannes where he also unveiled Transylvania [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] in 2006, closing the festival out of competition.

According to Gatlif, Indignados "plunges into the dense and palpable reality of a Europe in revolt just to be able to live, through the gaze and illusions of Betty (Mamebetty Honoré Diallo), a young African illegal immigrant." Travelling along the edge of the borders of a Europe on the verge of collapse in terms of its social cohesion, Betty confronts this reality and the absurd situations it creates.

From wreckage to hope, she will hear the song of Exile when her feet walk and run in this Eldorado pounded by whole crowds chanting the wake-up call. In her path and her encounters with human beings in solidarity, in the heart of ghost towns destroyed by the crisis, Betty, who is looking for a job, will find herself on the road of disillusion of the indignant ones who will sing to her the words written on the empty walls: "Cada dia tus ilusiones se cruzan con las nuestras" (every day, your illusions merge with ours).

Produced by Princes Films (Gatlif’s company), Indignados is co-produced by Eurowide Films Production (Claudie Ossard), Rhône-Alpes Cinéma and Herodiade. Les Films du Losange will release the film in French theatres (on March 7, 2012) and are handling international sales.

At the same time, Gatlif has directed the documentary Indignez-vous! for television network Arte. For the director says: "This is urgent. The disorder of financial capitalism is throwing the world and its population into a crisis that is increasingly tough for millions of people, reduced to unemployment and plunged into poverty. These dark times in which we live may lead to worse still, a surge in xenophobic and racist violence, a war of civilisation, pitting nations against other nations in the name of God, the incompatibility of cultures, or quite simply hatred of the other. Cinema, like literature, music and the other arts, must fight against this terrible outcome.

(Translated from French)