Amara
From Colorado, where he has chosen to live, Fouad Mennana begins to trace his late grandfather - Amara Mennana - an Algerian farmer expropriated from his land and deported to the prisons of French Guiana in 1926. Fouad launches a research and sends messages on the internet, without waiting a response. But nothing is less accessible than the violence of the past, and the archives and the files and dust of the cardboard boxes secretly silence the history of those who no longer have a name: no surname, no number, no grave. And yet, in this landscape of disappearance, between Constantine and Saint Laurent du Maroni, between Algiers, Aix-en-Provence and the United States, a few letters reach their destination one day: "if I am to be liberated, I will return to my country".
Projections
Palmarès
Festivals
08.19 : Festival de Douarnenez, Bretagne, France
03.19 : Cinéma du Réel [official competition], Paris, France
Born in Nantes in 1984, Pierre Michelon studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Nantes and at the Villa Arson in Nice. He extended his practice of the documentary form by developing his interest in writing and the use of history, colonial history especially, by way of translations, readings and performances. He directed his first films in Algeria (Risacca non erra, 2012) and French Guyana (A Small Piece of Wood, 2015). As an observing participator, he surveys the lands of a forgetful society and tries to reconstitute a common, translated and plural past. "Making history" thereby becomes a vast practice: from examining the in-and-outs of the landscapes, listening with an attentive ear to archives and polyglot voices. He is currently a candidate for a doctorate in Sciences Art Création Recherche (SACRe) at Paris Sciences et Lettres Université / Ecole nationale supérieure des beaux arts de Paris. His work is shown in festivals and in curatorial and cultural programs. He addresses these various and complementary spaces without prioritizing them, which allows him to reach cinephile audiences and contemporary art connoisseurs as well as establishing dialogues with community activists and politically involved citizens.
His films have been selected and screened at Les Inattendus, Lyon (2016), Echelle Inconnue, Rouen (2015), the Torino Film Festival, Torino (2015), the Fondation Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino (2015), DOClab, Hà Nội (2015), the campus of the university of Guyana, Cayenne (2014), the Cinématographe, Nantes (2015), the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs Océane, St Herblain (2014), the Friche Belle de mai, Marseille (2013), the Villa Croce, Genoa (2013), l'E.C.L.A.T., Festival Jeune Algérie, Nice (2012), and the Restaurant Municipal Pierre Landais, Nantes (2012 and 2013).
Filmography
Tepantar, 32 minutes, 2017
Un petit morceau de bois (A small piece of wood), 41 minutes, 2014
Risacca non erra, (video installation at the Villa Arson), 52 minutes, 2012
Bokor, (video installation at the Villa Arson), 12 minutes, 2012