Direct Action
Back to listSynopsis
Taking its title from the tactical protest strategy of the same name – “an action that seeks to achieve an end directly and by the most effective means” – DIRECT ACTION is a contemporary portrait of one of the most important militant activist communities in France – a 150-person strong rural collective that survived multiple violent eviction attempts by the French state, successfully resisted an international airport expansion project, created an autonomous zone from 2012-2018, and spawned a remarkable new ecological movement in 2021.
Through a collaborative and uniquely immersive observational approach, DIRECT ACTION documents the everyday of a diverse ecosystem of activists, squatters, anarchists, farmers and government-labeled “eco-terrorists” – so as to better understand how the success of a of a radical protest movement can offer a path through the climate crisis facing us all.
Screenings
Teatro Estudio
Teatro Santa Ana
Cast and crew
Director's bio:
Guillaume Cailleau (1978) is a Berlin-based artist, filmmaker and film producer whose interest lies in exploring new forms to adress political and social issues.
His films have been screened at prestigious film festivals (Berlin, NY, Rotterdam, Edinburgh ,..). 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.
Ben Russell (USA, 1976) is a Marseille-based artist, filmmaker and curator whose work lies at the intersection of ethnography and psychedelia. Russell 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), and premiered his second and third feature films at the Locarno Film Festival (2013, 2017).
Gallery
