les ateliers varan I - what’s real and what’s not

Over the course of three ses­sions, Ate­lier Varan presents a selec­tion of films pro­duced as part of the Varan work­shops, cre­at­ed 45 years ago. Above all they reflect a vision of doc­u­men­tary cinema, under two themes: Towards the Dream, and What is Real and What is Not.  The film Le pont Mirabeau by Elie Rajaonarai­son, stem­ming from the very first work­shop in 1980, por­trays a clash of perspectives—through Guil­laume Apollinaire’s poem and the French reality—offering a sharp alert to con­tra­dic­tion. At the time, the Varan work­shops func­tioned as a kind of lab­o­ra­to­ry, where trainees from dif­fer­ent coun­tries came to make films in France. The mentors—around ten at the time—were mostly ini­ti­at­ed by Jean Rouch. Vin­cent and Sev­erin Blanchet, his former assis­tants during uni­ver­si­ty train­ings, along with Elis­a­beth Kap­nist, Patrick Genet, Jean-Paul Beau­viala, Jean-Noël Cris­tiani, and André Van In, passed on their knowl­edge not through theory, but through hands-on learn­ing: by doing, invent­ing, and experimenting.  Just as Jean Rouch led a work­shop in Mozam­bique in 1978 at the request of cul­tur­al attaché Jacques d’Arthuis, the aim of the inter­na­tion­al work­shops was to … read more

DUSTY NIGHT
(NUIT DE POUSSIERE )

Mohammad Ali Hazara
Afghanistan 2011 | 20 Min.

Thu, 29-May-25 02:00 PM

You suffer as long as you breathe,” shouts a hoarse voice out­side the pic­ture, and then adds with honest irony: ”Dust is our wealth.” The voice belongs to a street sweep­er. When night falls, he leaves his dis­tant suburb with his two sons to sweep a wide street in the centre of Kabul. It was quick­ly widened by the Japan­ese, who invest­ed a good ten mil­lion dol­lars in the project. Sev­er­al of these mil­lions have simply dis­ap­peared: “There will always be cor­rup­tion here,” says the man who has to sweep this cen­tral axis all night long for a pittance.

Ali Hazara was born in Ghvas, a remote vil­lage in Afghanistan’s Wardak province, in 1977. When his father was threat­ened, he had to flee to Iran with his family in 1979. After spend­ing his entire child­hood there, he returned to Afghanistan in 2004. He then began to take an inter­est in cinema, and in 2007 took a train­ing course at Ate­liers Varan. His ambi­tion is to change the sit­u­a­tion in Afghanistan through art. He writes songs, makes films and par­o­dies TV shows. But after so many years, a dark image of his coun­try per­sists in his mind, a dusty night. Films: DUSTY NIGHT (2011); ACT OF DISHONOUR (2010); RABBIN HOOD (2014).

ELEKTRICHKA

Temur Mzhavia
Georgia, South Caucasus 2006 | 21 Min.

Thu, 29-May-25 02:00 PM
Q&A with:
Temur Mzhavia
At 7 o’clock in the morn­ing, the Elek­trich­ka, a wooden-class train, sets off from Tbil­isi (Geor­gia) to Bor­jo­mi, 150 km away. The wind whis­tles through the pain­less win­dows. The train … read more

UNDER THE MIRABEAU BRIDGE
(SOUS LE PONT MARIBEAU )

Elie Rajaonarison
France 1980 | 15 Min. | DCP, EN subs

Thu, 29-May-25 02:00 PM
Q&A with:
Daniel Deshays, Emmanuelle Baude, Jean-Noël Cristiani
In Guil­laume Apol­li­naire’s poem, two visions col­lide: the image of France learned in Mada­gas­car and the real­i­ty later expe­ri­enced in the former metrop­o­lis. For a for­eign­er, adapt­ing to French life … read more