Liberating land from ecocide: “An Island and One Night” (“Une Ile et une nuit”) film screening
About the event
Sunday November 8 * 3pm sharp! * Free / donations * RSVP
“ZAD,” or “zone à defender,” has entered the European lexicon as a general term for militant direct collective action against large-scale development projects. First coming into prominence in the collective opposition airport construction in Notre-Dame-des-Landes, France, (still the largest self-organized autonomous zone in Europe) the approach and tactic has spread widely. To be a “zadiste” is defined in the Le Petit Robert dictionary as “a militant occupying a ZAD to oppose a proposed development that would damage the environment.” In the North American context, we know relatively little about these concrete fights or the conceptual formation of this idea. Come hear from Alexis, an anarchist and organizer with the Punch Up Collective in Ottawa who has been spending time in these autonomous spaces and who will share an autonomously, collectively created film illuminating this tendency.
Residents of the Quartier Libre des Lentillières in Dijon, one of the most famous occupied zones in France, have produced an auto-fictional cinematic firework in a self-managed and collective manner, which makes the desire for radical-ecological change sensually comprehensible. It gives a magnificent insight into current radical French activist scenes around the strategy of the ZAD and can serve as a generous starting point for a trans-Atlantic discussion on how liberatory strategies of reclaiming territory can look and feel like in a world tainted by settler-colonialism, fascism and other toxic forms of exclusion.
The film An Island and One Night (“Une Ile et une nuit”) has screened widely in the European context, but is normally only shown when one of the collective members from the Lentillieres is with it; it does not circulate online, and there are currently only two people in North America, friends of the Lentillères, able to show it.
About the film: An Island and One Night (“Une Ile et une nuit”) is a fictional film made collectively over two years by the residents and users of the Quartier Libre des Lentillères, a self-organized area on the last remaining market garden land in the city of Dijon. These eight hectares have been occupied and recultivated since 2010, in resistance to a concrete “ecocity” project that still threatens them today. In the middle of the city, these fallow spaces and abandoned houses have been transformed into a self-managed, multi-purpose district, where collective housing, market gardening, self-construction, festive and cultural events, etc. intermingle. It’s a place of struggle and solidarity of all kinds, as well as a veritable reserve of biodiversity.
In this film, we use the prism of the imaginary to talk about reality, about what we live here, how we got here, what we’re looking for and what we’re fighting against every day. It’s a musical and danced fiction, without heroes or heroines, with houses that are boats (and vice versa), pirates of all kinds and as many different languages… In short, the Quartier Libre des Lentillères is a treasure island into the eye of cinema!
Self-produced, self-distributed and based on volunteer participation, this film shot on 16mm silver film was built up over the course of the area’s life, in correlation with it, to the rhythm of events and seasons. From writing to filming to editing, each stage of the process was collective and participatory, with everyone sharing their know-how. The film’s music is made up of original tracks composed during the making of the film, as well as pre-existing tracks from supportive bands who have played at the Quartier in the past. Beyond the pleasure of sharing this creation with a large and diverse audience, screenings are an opportunity to pass on experience of struggle, self-organization and the invention of forms of collective life geared towards a good life for all, and respectful of all living beings.
Around a campfire travelers, vagabonds and pirates tell their stories…
