Projection and discussion
De bas étage
13 Feb 2022
The event is over
Mehdi, a small-time safe-cracker, is about thirty years old. He and his accomplices are struggling to get by, but their burglaries in industrial zones don't pay like they used to, and the few alternative occupations open to him are scarcely attractive. Riddled with self-doubt, he tries to win back Sarah, the mother of his year-old son whom he adores.
"De bas étage (Second Rate) is a very "Bressonian" film. I also see it as a very beautiful and humble reference to Pasolini. I feel that a lot of people missed out on this aspect of the film and its genealogy, perhaps precisely because the director is a young Arab boy, and because he claims to work or to have worked on building sites. I got the feeling there was a misunderstanding between the way the film was sold (a genre film, a robbery) and what I saw in it, personally. I could relate to it. It questions me about what we didn't see, couldn't or didn't want to see. I'd like to discuss it with him." Alice Diop
Yassine Qnia, De bas étage (Second Rate, France, 2021, 86 min)
Preceded by:
Soufiane Adel, Go Forth (France, 2014, 62 min)
"The narrative thread of the story of Taklit Hamani, my grandmother, who was born in Algeria and has lived in France for sixty years, is interwoven with the narrative of History and an exploration of the suburb and its ensemble. A personal narrative caught up in collective history." SA
Session followed by an encounter with Alice Diop, Soufiane Adel and Yassine Qnia
When
8pm - 10:30pm
Where
Yassine Qnia, De bas étage, 2021
© Shanna Besson