RSVP
Doors 6:30pm / Screening 7pm
Free event

Join us for the opening night of “No Border: A Sylvain George Retrospective” with a special screening of 2017’s Paris est une fête (un film en 18 vagues). At once poetic and political, George’s fiery documentary of France’s “Nuit Debout” protest movement remains as relevant today as when it was first released almost a decade ago. Aligned with the perspective of Paris’s migrant community, the film blends images of police brutality and encampment sweeps with philosophical meditations on history inspired by Walter Benjamin and Giorgio Agamben. At stake: a symbolic battle over the French capital between the forces of order and those of liberation. Selection, Cinéma du réel 2017. Preceded by George’s short film “Joli mai.” Followed by a Q&A with the director. 7pm. Sunday April 27th.

Sylvain George is one of the foremost chroniclers of European Union border politics in the 21st century. Since 2008, he has completed seven feature films devoted to the situation of North African immigrants in France, their encounters with the French border police, and their struggles to build a dignified life free from racism and persecution. As a poet and philosopher making films in some of the most difficult-to-access regions of Europe’s border-surveillance complex, his work is often produced clandestinely, with a close relationship to his film’s subjects. George currently teaches at the Institut de Sciences Politiques de Paris (IEP).