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
les ateliers varan I - what’s real and what’s not
DUSTY NIGHT
(NUIT DE POUSSIERE )
Mohammad Ali Hazara
Afghanistan 2011 | 20 Min.
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.
Georgia, South Caucasus 2006 | 21 Min.
Thu, 29-May-25 02:00 PM
Q&A with:
Temur Mzhavia
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
France 1980 | 15 Min. | DCP, EN subs
Thu, 29-May-25 02:00 PM
Q&A with:
Daniel Deshays, Emmanuelle Baude, Jean-Noël Cristiani
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