On revient de loin

Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, a pro-Palestinian communist resistance fighter, is France's longest-serving political prisoner. Incarcerated for 40 years, he remains a symbol. He was suspected of being behind the attacks that sowed chaos in 1980s Paris and was convicted of murdering two diplomats. In the film *The Abdallah Affair*, which Pierre Carles dedicates to him, we discover a deeply troubling story: a country choosing an ideal scapegoat. An incredible piece of fake news and intense pressure exerted by the United States on France are at the root of this extraordinary length of detention. The official media machine went into overdrive, serving a national interest, blind and deaf to all the ambiguities of this case, which this documentary exposes. Georges Abdallah was imprisoned in France for nearly 41 years. Wrongfully. At 74, he managed to leave prison, standing tall, his political convictions intact.

On April 2, 1995, the television channel Canal+ censored the documentary "Pas vu à la télé" (Not Seen on TV), directed by Pierre Carles, which had been commissioned a few weeks earlier by the program director, Alain de Greef. "Pas vu à la télé" was slated to be featured in Canal+'s "TV Day" segment, under the heading "Television, Power, Morality." Carles recounted this censorship in the feature film "Pas vu pas pris" (Not Seen, Not Caught), released in theaters on November 18, 1998. It drew over 160,000 viewers. Eighteen years later, "Pas vu à la télé" remains unaired on French television. As for "Pas vu, pas pris," it has still not been broadcast on French television. However, it has been shown on television in Belgium, Quebec, and Switzerland. Since then, nine billionaires now control more than 80% of the media in France, while eleven of them account for 57% of the television audience.

Georges Bernier, alias Professor Choron, died January 10, 2005. He was 75 years old. The few death notices that appeared in the French press mainly focused on the scatological nature of his humor, or on the good man's provocative side. No one recalled the essential, which was that with his passing not only had one of the great proprietors of the French press disappeared, but he'd taken with him an artist in his own right, quite unique in his own way : Professor Choron.

With the energy of the dying, those in power apply themselves to reasserting the value of work – with force, if need be. But more and more workers have understood that, to truly value their work, they have to do without it. They also have to get rid of the society of consumption that goes along with it. It may not be easy, but it is certainly amusing. We present a panorama of a mass desertion destined to spread.

Pierre Carles, the dispenser of justice seen in “Pas vu, pas pris,” is back in the saddle. After attacking French television star reporters, his new target is television critics as represented by Daniel Schneidermann, host of the "Arrêt sur images" show. “Enfin pris ?” analyzes censure at work in television. It is also a thought-provoking look at how power changes people and the intimate forces between ambition and loyalty. A cruel, biting comedy from which no one really comes out unscathed.

"I often say sociology is a martial art, a means of self-defence. Basically, you use it to defend yourself, without having the right to use it for unfair attacks." (Pierre Bourdieu) The world has witnesses who speak out loud what others keep to themselves. They are neither gurus, nor masters, but those who consider that the city and the world can be thought out. The sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu is one such witness." Over a three- year period, Pierre Carles' camera followed him through different situations: a short conversation with Günter Grass, a lively conference with the inhabitants of a working-class suburb, his relations with his students and colleagues and his plea that sociology be part of the life of the city. His thinking has a sort of familiarity, which means it is always within our reach. It is the thinking of a French intellectual who has chosen to think his times.

Pierre Carles questions the privatization of the leading French televisions channel : is it not scandalous that the TFI-Bouygues concession has been automatically renewed since 1987 ? Taking up the anti-television fight he initiated with "Pas vu Pas pris", his first film, he confronts the people responsible for the news who have always avoided tackling this taboo subject. But the investigation does not go as planned : the old dinosaurs and young guardians now how to handle this media critic. To find his "fighting spirit" again, Carles calls to arms his friends and changes methods : Henceforth, no more concessions !

Pierre Carles and Georges Minangoy go to meet former French and Catalan partisans engaged in the anti-Franco anarchist struggle of the 1970s.

In this economic war, promised to us many years ago and which advances like bulldozer, does there still exist a surge of imagination offering resistance ? Ordered to choose between the breadcrumbs of precarious employment and the meager charity still offered by the system, some abandon the society of consumption to claim back their lives. “Neither exploitation nor handouts!” many of them exclaim. They’ve chosen another path, that of autonomy, of consciously choosing to undertake certain activities, and of uniting together with other like-minded people.

The french mainstream media ignored the last visit in Paris of the leftist Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa. It's however this small country of Latin America, Equator, that serves as a model for Greek activists who are taking part in Syriza party or for non-orthodox economists from the spanish movement Podemos in order to solve the issue concerning the public debt. The Correa government declared a part of this debt « illegitimate » to implement public investment, and social inequalities reduction policies.

In this pitch black comedy the rivalry between two neighbors escalates into an all out war. Through a maintenance error on a tractor they both end up, paralyzed, in a wheelchair. It seems they are doomed to stay together. They no longer focus their rage on each other but on the manufacturer of the tractor, in Helsinki. So get ready for a hilarious wheelchair road movie.

The former shepherd, Jean Lassalle, decides to run in the presidential election. Neither one nor two, Pierre Carles and Philippe Lespinasse, two filmmakers labeled left, but a bit politically lost, decide to take action: They proclaim themselves his campaign advisers, with the secret ambition to reveal his true nature, that of an anti capitalist revolutionary, lost among the centrists for 30 years.

Under the auspices of Rio Chiquito, Bruno Muel and Jean-Pierre Sergent’s 1965 report on the birth of the FARC, and Dunav Kuzmanich’s 1981 fiction film Canaguaro about the end of the Liberal guerillas, this is look back on 70 years of clandestine life in the Columbian forest. Women and men who took up arms amid profound social inequality and political violence recount their years as fighters and their return to civilian life, without disowning their past. From 2012, when the peace negotiations began, to 2022 — the story of a new struggle.