25/06/2025 - The director chatted with us about her intense yet brilliant portrayal of a woman who finds refuge in an emergency shelter following a brutal change in circumstances

(© Aurore Engelen)

Having turned heads with En bataille, portrait d’une directrice de prison (winning the Best Documentary Magritte in 2018) and Temps mort [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Eve Duchemin
film profile], Eve Duchemin is making her return with Petit rempart [+see also:
film review
interview: Eve Duchemin
film profile], an intimate portrait of fifty-year-old Mariem who has to contend with what we’d politely refer to as one of life’s “curveballs” – having to escape a violence spouse – which invites us to follow her during a lengthy spell spent in an emergency shelter for isolated women. The film is screening within the National Competition at the Brussels International Film Festival (BRIFF).

Cineuropa: How did this project come about?
Eve Duchemin: When I was waiting for my previous film, Temps mort, to be released, I took part in a theatre workshop with some homeless women. I was happy to be able to film real-life and I was surprised to find myself meeting women I’d previously crossed paths with on the street just below where I lived, but whom I’d never really seen. Just like with my previous projects, the idea was to lend a voice to these people who aren’t used to people listening to them, and it always throws up some surprises. Then, one day, Mariem walked in late, with her high-heeled Timberlands and long blond hair. She didn’t look anything like the other participants; she looked like a sales manager who’d walked into the wrong room. But she hadn’t. That’s where the film began, I’d say.

So you film your encounter with Mariem but also the shelter where she found refuge.
When we think of homeless women we draw upon certain clichés, the kind of person we’d step over in the street, physically depleted. Mariem is a far cry from all that. The first question from both our perspectives was: is it legitimate for us to film her to explore this particular subject-matter? From the outset, Mariem said: "I know that I’m privileged, you can film me, but I want you to film the other women too." But despite the environment she comes from and the comfort she’s experienced, her body still carries the scars of her trajectory. Her body has been dominated. So we wanted to counter that ready-made image. And over the lengthy time we spent filming, other truths ended up emerging. We also had to film the place itself. It’s a dormitory way of life; inevitably there are a lot of women and there’s regular turnover too. So the film testifies to their relationships and to their many potential fates. And the shelter is also a closed space, reminiscent of prison with its rules and its timetables. It’s an asylum-style system. Once again, I filmed walls and empty corridors. The system infantilises them, and in a certain sense, what removes them from the world in order to protect them from its brutality ultimately excludes them from it. The aim is to help them, but we’re also making them weaker.

What was the biggest challenge for you?
Not believing that everything would magically be better for them. That’s one of the reasons I don’t film what happens next when Mariem comes out of the shelter, so that people don’t believe everything’s sorted. We have to stop believing that putting plasters on people will mean they’re all better. And what’s important for me, with this kind of immersive cinema, is that we can identify with the other, which helps to shift our perspective and enhance our imagination. Mariem had a comfortable life, which is an additional entry point for a lot of viewers, and when we’re with her we see lots of other kinds of lives. I wanted to show women in their vulnerability too. I get the feeling that “weak” is a bit of a swear-word now. We sing the praises of powerful women and celebrate success, courage. But, in my opinion, these weak women who are all together, who have a good time despite their difficulties, are truly magnificent. That’s real power, in my mind. They teach us something, by helping one another, listening to one another, supporting one another, encouraging one another to dream.

(Translated from French)