A Life, A Manifesto

"I'm gay, I'm a fag, I'm proud and I really love sex."

The 21st of april 2002 was the day of the first round of the presidential elections. The two candidates chosen for the 2nd round of the elections were right wing Jacques Chirac and right fascist, homophobe and racist Jean-Marie Le Pen. When the result were announced, i was overwhelmed by so many emotions: where i had lived, what i have done, what i have not done, and how i too was responsible for this outcome... An irretrievable turning point. One of those very few moments when one feels that one is really living history. But unfortunately, history at its blackest. That very night was also the night my close friends organised a surprise birthday party for me. The cake had a bitter taste. Clash of public and private matters, small things of my intimate life and history in the making...

An aquatic ballet to the sound of It's Raining Men.

In 1914, the Czech architect Jan Letzel designed in the Japanese city of Hiroshima Center for the World Expo, which has turned into ruins after the atomic bombing in August 1945. “Atomic Dome” – all that remains of the destroyed palace of the exhibition – has become part of the Hiroshima memorial. In 2007, French sculptor, painter and film director Jean-Gabriel Périot assembled this cinematic collage from hundreds of multi-format, color and black and white photographs of different years’ of “Genbaku Dome”.

At the end of the 1960s the post-war generation began to revolt against their parents. This was a generation disillusioned by anti-communist capitalism and a state apparatus in which they believed they saw fascist tendencies. This generation included journalist Ulrike Meinhof, lawyer Horst Mahler, filmmaker Holger Meins as well as students Gudrun Ensslin and Andreas Baader.

Medically speaking, we're moving forward.

A documentary experiment of great emotional power, about freedom and the strength of human affective bonds. We witness a concert given by the inmates of a prison in Orléans. Yet, they remain unseen, beyond the prison walls, all along the film, while the camera looks at those who listen to the music outside, in front of the prison. Silent emotions, the rapt faces of the listeners, humming along the prisoners, and their unrevealed personal histories, form a human gallery of potential stories, born out of the viewer's imagination.

A film about politics and tomatoes.

On the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Akihiro, a native Japanese filmmaker living in Paris, travels to Japan to interview survivors for a documentary commemorating the victims of the attack. Deeply moved by the interviews, he decides to take a break to wander through the city during which he meets Michiko, a merry, enigmatic young woman. Michiko takes him for a joyful and improvised journey from the city towards the sea where the horrors of the past are mingled with the simplicity of the present.

A beautiful, elegiac cycle expressing the boundless hope and infinite nostalgia of the voyage, consisting entirely of still images and painstakingly assembled into a emotionally moving pictorial essay. Periot: 'Remember that I am the cause of your journey. Don't lose me along the way.'

Documentary short about the Black Panther movement.

An intimate and political history of the French working class from the early 1950s to the present day.

Revolution, queer and rock n roll.

A very private moment in which the body becomes an artificial and fabricated entity. A young man changes in front of a mirror. He cleans the scars on his stomach, takes out his contact lenses, removes his dentures and brushes his teeth before leaving. This brings up the question of appearances: here we see what we are not in the habit of seeing. There is also the question of intimacy.... A question, however, that remains unanswered.

Following Bosnia and Herzegovina’s declaration of independence in April 1992, Bosnian Serb troops besieged and bombed Sarajevo. Over a period of four years, five young filmmakers documented the bombardments and daily life during the siege—for some, the aim was simply to report the news; for others, it was a way of dealing with their fears.