Les ateliers Varan

A secret figure in French underground cinema, Maria Koleva has filmed all over Paris, written about Marx and rubbed shoulders with the likes of Serge Daney. This documentary is a portrait of a histrionic Koleva, trying to reveal her militant, poetic and cinematographic universe, located in the Latin Quarter of Paris.

Alix left his native island, Martinique, and its musical culture, to study opera singing in Paris. Portrait of a young man who now embraces all his singularities: his rare countertenor voice, his kohl and his done nails. He works hard to realize his dream of becoming a professional artist.

Saud now lives in Paris, caring with devotion and tenderness for his two young children while closely following the drama in Gaza. “It's hard to be far away.” He speaks sadly of his situation as a Palestinian citizen of Israel. When he accompanies his daughter to school, they both stick up placards for the liberation of Palestine...

A look at the life of society's outcasts through three locations: the Fleury-Mérogis prison, a low-income housing project in the Paris region, and the shacks of a vacant lot at the gateway to Saint-Ouen. A reflection on the idea and use of freedom.

Every day, Catherine feeds and cares for the pigeons in Place Beaubourg, under the curious gaze of the passersby.

What does the people in the street think of nuclear physics today? These men and women do not walk far from the imposing Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie (Porte de la Villette, Paris). They have more nuanced ideas than one might imagine, just like those of scientists. This rapprochement between everyone is beneficial.

Gare du Nord in Paris is a transit station for all those coming from the suburbs, the provinces or abroad. Accompanied by Simon Mérabet, the son of Algerian immigrants from the Var, Human Geography offers a series of brief meetings with individuals who recount their lives in just a few words before disappearing to take their trains. The crowd of passengers is embodied in these stories, one life after another, and we see how globalization fashions individual destinies, subject to geographical and economic pressures.

Wakis, a lumberjack in the Central African Republic, works with his family collecting wood to process into charcoal. But faced with its increasing scarcity—and to avoid conflicts with his neighbours—he must “hunt” trees further and further away from his production site. Tanguy Djaka Yarissi creates an accurate social chronicle about the insecurity of a traditional trade. – Emmanuel Chicon

Documenting the transformation of Bưởi Road in Hanoi, from a labyrinth of houses and small businesses to a highway, with demolition crew destroying buildings - some still inhabited, gleaners looking for metal scraps to sell for a living, and people living on the edge of this crowded road finding a way to keep on living.

Sediq and Yousof work for the small electricity distribution sub-station in the district of Char Qala-e-Wazirabad. From day to day, they have to deal with the electricity shortage and repair the derelict installations. The film follows them as they're working and reveals life in a popular neighbourhood of Kabul.

In an old district of Hanoi, formerly a village, new loud speakers must be repaired and installed. By observing everyday life, Vang Anh films with humor the animation caused by this event and plunges us into the heart of Vietnamese contradictions.

The day-to-day battles of patients who reinvent their lives in a small alley near their hospital in Hanoi, far from their villages and families.

Montmartre, in the square. They pass each other, ogle and play. As much as they sniff, lick and bite each other. The regulars have a field day.

After the demolition of the shacks and the construction of new buildings to resettle the residents of the old Curraleira neighborhood, an empty space remained. This film is about that place, about the encounters, stories, and activities that define it.

The Vietnamese State has decided to modernise and to establish vast tourist complexes along the entire coastal zone of the agricultural region of Quang Nam, forcing peasants off their lands. The film recounts the reactions of the inhabitants, many of whom participated in the liberation struggle for the independence of Vietnam.

In 1985, the audiovisual training association Varan organized a documentary film workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa. The 12 young trainees filmed their community and their country from the inside, beyond the poor authorized journalistic clichés. Their material is organized in a chronicle, animated by the variety of subjects and views, and constitutes a real journey to the heart of apartheid, which we must look at today to measure how far we still have to go. 9 subjects are successively developed.