PRESENTATION

PRESENTATION

This is about images that capture the event with the urgency of real time. But above all, images impregnated with questions, investigations and rejections of their time. The presentation of a collection of film experiences 'around May '68' is not only a chronological reference. It addresses the fact that a group of films and proposals share the most radical questions of that era in all their intensity. .

Memory is a space for struggle: the forces of power need to control memories, especially the memories of a time that changed so many lives and reality itself. May 2008 will be the fortieth anniversary of the largest general strike in the history of France, and the last widespread insurrection in a capitalist 'developed' society in the second half of the twentieth century. 'Reactive memories' (political, media-orientated, cultural) downplay the sense of May '68 by reducing it to a student revolt, a generational conflict, a matter of hormones, an acceleration of modernity (an explosion of hedonist individualism, liberation of lifestyles), etc. Their objective is to de-politicise the present. On the contrary, our approach to May '68 focuses on its radical critique of representation, on the collective creation of other forms of expression, relationships and life. Much of our effort goes to bring to the present a tempestuous and conflictive memory: the search for political spaces outside, on the margins and against institutional politics.

This search for new spaces and ways of doing things did not just take place in the field of organised struggle: Action Committees, occupation of factories, street demonstrations, diffuse self-organisation. The May '68 insurrection influenced film making in equal measure, perhaps more than any other cultural form or language. For this reason, the film cycle programmed for May-June in Seville, Barcelona and Madrid, will present a series of films, mostly from the late sixties, that take on board the problems of May '68: How can a movement that rejects 'the indignity of speaking for others' - not only at the level of politics, the media and the unions, but also culturally, artistically and intellectually - express itself? What makes an image political? What makes militant cinema militant?

The title of the cycle, In and Against Cinema, taken from a text in the Internationale Situationniste No 1, is a fitting epigraph to suggest the double direction that arises from such questions and puts those experiences under strain:
- Against, because they imply a deep questioning of the hegemonic film forms, models and narratives, hence the opposition movement, the critique of the prevailing models.
- In, because they simultaneously affirm and widen the possibilities of the medium to document, communicate, question, join and strengthen all signs of social transformation, new forms of politicisation and the search for autonomy.

The present cycle reflects radical lines of experimentation and creation: from Loin du Vietnam - filmed in 1967 by a collective of filmmakers, including Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, Joris Ivens and Jean-Luc Godard, to protest against American military intervention in Vietnam, a war whose denunciation was precisely at the roots of May '68 - to the experiences of the Medvedkine Group, committed to the production and realisation of militant films by the workers themselves, i.e., by those who are normally excluded from representation; from cinétracts - literally film pamphlets, anonymous mini-films, whose aim was the direct political participation in the movement - to the films of Guy Debord.

These lines are plural and include the questioning of the mechanisms and foundations of the image; the interruption of the established forms of transmission and perception, as in the films of Maurice Lemaître or Pierre Clémenti; the breaking of social barriers between subjects and worlds that institutional society deliberately keeps apart (workers, students, filmmakers, intellectuals), as was the case with the Medvedkine Group; the practice of collective author essays and collective creation, as in the ARC and Dziga Vertov groups, or even the politics of anonymity; the setting up of alternative channels of production and distribution such as those of États Généraux du Cinéma; the investigation at the heart of film forms, from the interaction between soundtrack, text and image contesting and counteracting one another, eroding their own evidence, to the use of new editing methods, or the use of someone else's images or images filmed by others, subjected to an exercise in critique or deviation, a procedure taken to the extreme in La société du spectacle and Un film comme les autres.

In our selection, we have chosen not to include feature films on May '68, both those made at the time and more recent films that use it as a backdrop for their plot, invariably reduced to icons such as the barricades, slogans, graffiti and student demonstrations, seen as a prerogative of that movement. We have also excluded the enormous amount of audiovisual, television and cinema material ruled by documentary conventions that has been produced for successive commemorations of the event.

Film making around May '68 is political not only because it documents, gives voice and/or denounces situations of oppression and struggle, but because the making, production and circulation of these films question in a constructive way well-defined and established identities, functions and social categories. Moreover, no other medium can so vividly reflect the atmosphere of May '68 in the Latin Quarter, the public debates and re-appropriation of the streets, as do the images of Grands soirs et petits matins by William Klein; or the strong resistance of militant workers against resuming work, as does Oser lutter, oser vaincre by Jean-Pierre Thorn; or their defeat, as does La reprise du travail aux usines Wonder. These are images that belie the present representation of May '68 as a harmless movement - stripped of violence, conflict and politics - and act as vibrant traces of the event. Undoubtedly, this is due to the fact that these images do not limit themselves to registering what took place, but try to participate actively and creatively by taking part in the events with all its social implications.

How can the memory of May '68 not have a disruptive presence today, when such formidable business, media and political machines are defining our everyday life, monopolising our attention, directing our perception, imposing and stealing our words and images to replace them with their own? How can these films not appeal to the present, when we find their echoes in the endless contemporary searches for new ways of self-representation beyond all instrumentalization?

Indeed, as one of the texts written by États Généraux du Cinéma during the May insurrection proclaimed, 'to make cinema is to rebel'.

David Cortés and Amador Fernández-Savater

PROGRAMME SEVILLE

PROGRAMME SEVILLE [6-21 de Mayo 2008]
Venue: Auditorium Reales Atarazanas (C/ Temprado 1, Seville). Free Entry. 7.00 p.m.
DVD Projections in original version with Spanish subtitles

Tuesday 6 May
Session 1*
· Le Droit à la parole (1968), Michel Andrieu and Jacques Kébadian/ARC Group b/w, 52 min.
· CA 13, comité d'action du 13 ème arrondissement de Paris (1968), ARC Group, b/w, 40 min.

Wednesday 7 May
Session 2*
· Cinétracts (1968), anonymous, b/w, 69 min.

Thursday 8 May
Session 3*
· Un film comme les autres (1968), Jean-Luc Godard/Dziga Vertov Group, colour and b/w, 100 min.

Friday 9 May
Session 4
· Grands soirs et petits matins(1978), William Klein, b/w, 98 min.

Saturday 10 May
Session 5
· Sur le passage de quelques personnes à travers une assez courte unité de temps (1959), Guy Debord, b/w, 20 min.
· Critique de la séparation (1961), Guy Debord, b/w, 20 min.

Tuesday 13 May
Session 6
· Loin du Vietnam (1967), collective film (Jean-Luc Godard, Joris Ivens, William Klein, Claude Lelouch, Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, Agnès Varda, among others), colour, 110 min.

Wednesday 14 May
Session 7
· À bientôt, j'espère (1967), Chris Marker and Mario Marret, b/w, 43 min.
· La Charnière (1968), Medvedkin Group of Besançon, b/w, 12 min.
· Classe de lutte (1968), Medvedkin Group of Besançon, b/w, 40 min.

Thursday 15 May
Session 8
· La Révolution n'est qu'undébut. Continuons le combat (1968), Pierre Clémenti, colour, 23 min.
· Le Soulèvement de la jeunesse en Mai 68 (1968), Maurice Lemaître, b/w, 28 min.

Friday 16 May
Session 9
· Oser lutter, oser vaincre (1968), Jean-Pierre Thorn, b/w, 89 min.

Monday 19 May
Session 10
· Serie Nouvelle société No. 5 - 7 (1969), Medvedkine Group of Besançon, b/w, 30 min.
· Rhodia 4x8 (1969), Medvedkine Group of Besançon, b/w, 4 min.
· Sochaux, 11 juin 68 (1970), Medvedkine Group of Sochaux, b/w, 19 min.
· Lettre à mon ami Pol Cèbe (1970), Michel Desrois/Medvedkine Group of Besançon, colour, 17 min.

Tuesday 20 May
Session 11
· La société du spectacle(1973), Guy Debord, b/w, 88 min.

Wednesday 21 May
Session 12
· La reprise du travail aux usines Wonder (1968), Jacques Willemont, b/w, 11 min.
· Reprise (1996), Hervé Le Roux, colour, 180 min.

* The screening in session 1 (6th May 2008) will be presented by the cycle curators and the screenings in sessions 2 and 3 (7th and 8th May 2008) will have David Cortés, David Faroult and Amador Fernández-Savater as participants.

PARTICIPANTS

Herta Álvarez
En los años sesenta, Herta Álvarez participa en los grupos de jóvenes anarquistas (Groupe anarchiste Jeune) en París. Estudiante de filosofía en la Sorbona, en 1967 colabora con la "Liaisons des étudiants anarchistes" (LEA). En Mayo del 68 participa activamente en el Movimiento 22 de Marzo y a finales de ese año escribe junto a Serge July, Evelyne July y Alain Geismar Hacia la guerra civil. Con ellos y una parte de la UJCML (un colectivo de corte maoísta) crea la Gauche prolétarienne. Entre 1970 y 1974 trabaja como obrero especializado en varias empresas y a la vez es responsable de los "comités de lucha" en las fábricas Citroën. En 1975 se va a vivir a Donosti, donde colabora con en el grupo de "mujeres independientes" y participa en la creación de la asamblea de mujeres de Guipúzcoa. En 1981 regresa a Francia y en los años siguientes interviene en la creación de una empresa de integración para mujeres y desarrolla un trabajo comunitario produciendo quesos de oveja y de cabra. En 1990 vuelve a instalarse en París y desde entonces es realizadora de documentales y directora de producción.

David Cortés Santamarta
He is lecturer of Art History and Theory in the School of Art and Architecture of the European University of Madrid. Curator, along with Breixo Viejo, of the film series titled "Samuel Beckett: film and Television Work" held at the Reina Sofia Museum of Madrid (2006). Among his most recent publications are his work as editor of the book entitled George Benjamin (OCNE, Madrid, 2005) and as co-editor of the catalogue Samuel Beckett (MNCARS, Madrid, 2006), as well as the essays included in Hans Werner Henze. Komponist der Gegenwart (Henschel, Berlin, 2006) and Henze.Phaedra. Ein Werkbuch (Wagenbach, Berlin, 2007). He has collaborated with the magazine Archipiélago and the supplement "Cultura/s" of the La Vanguardia newspaper. As specialist on contemporary music he is a regular writer of the magazine Ritmo and the editions published by the Royal Opera House (Teatro Real) of Madrid.

David Faroult
He is a filmmaker and lecturer of Cinema Studies at the University of Marne-la-Vallée. He is coauthor, together with Gérard Leblanc, of Mai 68 ou le cinema en suspens (Syllepses, Paris, 1998) and coordinator of Jean-Luc Godard: Documents (Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 2006). He has made films about May '68, the prison situation, the Rwanda genocide, etc. His main interest is on the interval between creation, research and teaching.

Amador Fernández-Savater
He is co-director of the magazine Archipiélago and of Acuarela Publishers, which during 2007 and 2008 will publish a series of books on the subject of May '68. He has participated in different social movements (anti-globalisation, "no to war", Movimiento V de Vivienda (housing movement). He currently collaborates with the new daily paper Público. He has co-ordinated -as a collaborator with UNIA artandthinking- several seminars on contemporary political issues, undertaken from the point of view of new emancipation practices: What Does Politically Thinking Mean?, The New Right: Ideas and Means for Counter-revolution (I and II), Re-Enlightening the Enlightenment. Universality, Citizenship and Emancipation.

SYPNOSIS MOVIES

SYNOPSIS MOVIES

Le Droit à la parole (1968), Michel Andrieu and Jacques Kébadian/ARC Group, b/w, 52 min.
May '68 was a formidable 'right to speak'. In a few days, it pulverised the mechanisms that kept people silent, controlled and separated. The film registers some of the manifestations of this process: the street as a place for dialogue, walls as a space for expression, the attempts to overcome everyday social divisions...

CA 13, comité d'action du 13 ème arrondissement de Paris (1968), ARC Group, b/w, 40 min.
Student-Workers Action Committees were perhaps the essential organisational creation of May '68. Organised by districts, they promoted daily insurrection: material support to strikers, channels of information, meeting places… This short film captures the activities of one of these committees and is witness to one of the greatest manifestations of freedom at that time, unimaginable nowadays.

Cinétracts (1968), anonymous, b/w, 69 min.
Short films, of two to five minutes, filmed under a policy of anonymity by a group of professional filmmakers - such as Godard, Marker and Resnais, among others - and amateur filmmakers. In cinematic terms, these films were the exact equivalent of the famous May '68 posters and graffiti: made with simple resources but with strong visual impact to spread disinformation.

Un film comme les autres (1968), Jean-Luc Godard/Dziga Vertov Group, colour and b/w, 100 min.
Two workers of the Renault factory in Flins and three students from Nanterre discuss the issues arising from the May revolt: the continuity of the movement, its organisation, questions of power, political links beyond social categories… May scenes, filmed by ARC, and revolutionary texts, including some by Debord, are superimposed and interspersed with the group's dialogue through a complex and singular device.

La société du spectacle (1973), Guy Debord, b/w, 88 min.
Made exclusively from images belonging to the mass media - advertising, news, commercial films and cartoons - confronted with the theses from Debord's homonymous theoretical work, La société du spectacle pushes to the limit the strategies of dérive, in which elements from capitalist society are decontextualised and given a revolutionary orientation.

Grands soirs et petits matins (1978), William Klein, b/w, 98 min.
In May '68, at the request of États Généraux du Cinéma, the photographer and filmmaker William Klein filmed the most relevant events in the Latin Quarter in Paris with his hand-held camera. Ten years later, he used the original footage to make a documentary that captures the atmosphere of those demonstrations, meetings and public debates with great intensity.

Sur le passage de quelques personnes à travers une assez courte unité de temps (1959), Guy Debord, b/w, 20 min.
It is somehow paradoxical to talk of the cinematographic work of a figure such as Guy Debord, whose legacy is marked precisely by a firm denunciation of the colonisation of the real by the society of spectacle. In Sur le passage..., Debord introduces the most essential points of Situationist theory and practice: the construction of situations, the urban dérive, the demands for transformation in everyday life...

Critique de la séparation (1961), Guy Debord, b/w, 20 min.
'It is a film that is interrupted but does not end. All the conclusions are yet to be reached, all the calculations are yet to be made': the voice-over enunciates the constant questioning of cinematographic conventions by Debord through the conflictive encounter of soundtrack, text and image, thus pointing to the false totality of a society based on permanent separation and specialisation.

Loin du Vietnam (1967), collective film (Jean-Luc Godard, Joris Ivens, William Klein, Claude Lelouch, Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, Agnès Varda, among others), colour, 110 min.
The coming together of a group of filmmakers to - in their own words - 'affirm their solidarity with Vietnamese people faced with US aggression through the exercise of their profession', becomes a model for collective practice that will prove essential to all the militant cinematographic proposals that would develop a few months later, during May '68.

Oser lutter, oser vaincre (1968), Jean-Pierre Thorn, b/w, 89 min.
The strike at the Renault factory in Flins was particularly relevant due to the workers determination not to return to work at the beck and call of the bosses, the government and the union representatives. The film proposes an illuminating and militant objective: to understand how the class struggle confronts workers, not only with the enemy outside, but also with the enemy within: the betrayal of the trade unions.

La Révolution n'est qu'un début. Continuons le combat (1968), Pierre Clémenti, colour, 23 min.
Colour filters, superimpositions and blurred effects are some of the resources that Clémenti, influenced by Andy Warhol's Factory and psychedelic aesthetics, uses in this experimental film that combines images of demonstrations and police confrontations in the streets of Paris, with scenes from his own personal life and the rock band Les Fabuleux Loukoums.

Le Soulèvement de la jeunesse en Mai 68 (1968), Maurice Lemaître, b/w, 28 min.
Maurice Lemaître, one of the main protagonists of the Lettrist movement, took on the challenge of combining 'aesthetics' and 'politics' to generate an innovative film - and by definition, a ground-breaking film - about an event as equally creative and disruptive as May '68: strange images juxtaposed with different critiques of May '68, Lettrist songs and an internal monologue by the filmmaker.

Serie Nouvelle société No. 5 - 7 (1969), Medvedkine Group of Besançon, b/w, 30 min.
Under a generic title that alludes ironically to the 'new society' promised by the French Prime Minister at the time, this series of three short films exposes a variety of conflicts in French factories: piecework in chain production, heavy pressure by the bosses, serious work accidents, workers' broken family and personal lives...

Rhodia 4x8 (1969), Medvedkine Group of Besançon, b/w, 4 min.
A song by the French singer Colette Magny accompanies scenes that show the exhausting and repetitive rhythm of work inside the Rhodiaceta factory.

Sochaux, 11 juin 68 (1970), Medvedkine Group of Sochaux, b/w, 19 min.
The title itself indicates the commemorative character of this short film about one of the most brutal episodes of government repression during May '68, and one that was silenced in all the accounts that describe the insurrection as having no violence or victims. After a twenty-two-day strike at the Peugeot factory in Sochaux, the intervention by the anti-riot police left two people dead and 150 wounded.

Lettre à mon ami Pol Cèbe (1970), Michel Desrois/Medvedkine Group of Besançon, colour, 17 min.
A long shot inside a car structures this original short film in which the permanent vision of the road parallels the dialogue of the passengers discussing the events that occurred in France two years earlier.

À bientôt, j'espère (1967), Chris Marker and Mario Marret, b/w, 43 min.
'Comrades, silence is your worst enemy!' This is what Marret says to the workers when he arrives at the textile plant of Rhodiaceta in Besançon, where a strike is taking place that in many ways will anticipate the events of May '68. The documentary wants to break this silence by gathering the workers thoughts on their living and working conditions and their methods of struggle.

La Charnière (1968), Medvedkine Group of Besançon, b/w, 12 min.
Without images, La Charnière is a pure soundtrack that records the discussion between filmmakers and workers that took place after the première of À bientôt, j'espère. That debate would give birth to the collective experience of the Medvedkine Groups, dedicated to the production and realisation of militant films by the workers themselves.

Classe de lutte (1968), Medvedkin Group of Besançon, b/w, 40 min.
First in a series of films made by the Medvedkine Group, named after the Soviet filmmaker Alexander Medvedkine, creator of the project 'cinema-train' in the 1930s. Classe de lutte is, in some way, a portrait of Suzanne Zédet, a CGT militant activist, and it marks the definitive transition from 'a militant film on the workers condition to a militant workers film'.

La reprise du travail aux usines Wonder (1968), Jacques Willemont, b/w, 11 min.
A group of workers outside the Wonder battery factory. A woman cries out that she has no intention of going back to work, that the strike has been betrayed and the movement should continue without giving in to the routine of submission. Representatives of the firm's management, the trade unions and the odd faction try to calm her down: 'It's a victory, can't you understand?'.

Reprise (1996), Hervé Le Roux, colour, 180 min.
In 1995, filmmaker Hervé Le Roux made a 'sequel' to the short documentary filmed almost thirty years earlier outside the Wonder factory. On the pretext of finding the woman at the centre of those images of rebellion, he finds and interviews the other participants in the scene (trade unionists, the woman's work colleagues…). The result is a choral reflection on the situation of the working classes in the nineties.