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Direct action is a tactical strategy of protest that seeks to achieve an end directly and by the most effective means. DIRECT ACTION is a contemporary portrait of one of the most high-profile militant activist communities in France: a 150-person strong rural collective that successfully resisted an international airport expansion project in 2018, created an autonomous zone between 2012 and 2018, survived multiple violent eviction attempts by the French state and spawned a new ecological movement in 2021.
Using a collaborative and immersive observational approach, the film documents the everyday lives of a diverse ecosystem of activists, squatters, anarchists, farmers and those labelled by the government as “eco-terrorists”. Can the success of a radical protest movement offer a path through the climate crisis?
Filmmakers Ben Russell and Guillaume Cailleau will discuss their new film. Note: this event is a discussion only, not a screening. Those interested in watching the film can book tickets through the New York Film Festival website.
Presented by the Screen Studies department at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at The New School.
Guillaume Cailleau (France, 1978) is a Berlin-based artist, filmmaker and film producer whose interest lies in exploring new forms to address political and social issues. His films have been screened at film festivals (Berlin, NY, Rotterdam, Edinburgh) and his work has been exhibited in art institutions such as the Bangkok Art & Culture Centre, the Royal Ontario Museum, the Haus der Kulturen der Welt and the Centre Pompidou. In 2014, he won the Silver Bear Jury Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival for his short film Laborat. He produces films with his company CASKFILMS. Direct Action is his first feature-length film.
Born in the USA in 1976, Ben Russell is a Marseille-based artist, filmmaker and curator whose work lies at the intersection of ethnography and psychedelia. He was an exhibiting artist at documenta 14 (2017) and his work has been presented at the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Modern, the Museum of Modern Art Chicago, the Venice Film Festival and the Berlinale, among others. He is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (2008), a FIPRESCI International Critics Prize (IFFR 2010, Gijón 2017). Direct Action is his 5th feature-length film.
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