Filming at the Borders Film Series - Burn the Sea (Brûle la mer) by Nathalie Nambot and Maki Berchache

Thursday, October 20, 2016 6:30 PM - 9:00 PM

Leaving Tunisia soon after the fall of the Ben Ali regime in 2011, Maki Berchache arrived in Paris and stumbled upon L'abominable, a cooperative artist-run analog film lab devoted to alternative cinema, and met with filmmaker and activist Nathalie Nambot. Brûle la mer, shot in 16mm and 8mm, uses Berchache's own experience as a starting point for a collective narrative about the harragas — North African migrants attempting to find refuge in Europe in the wake of the Arab Spring — and for a poetic reflection on freedom and emancipation: what does it mean to “burn the seam” -- and borders, and laws, and papers? Following the harragas on their journey across the Mediterranean, through Italy and into France, Nambot and Berchache interrogate the quest for a new, "better" life in the North.

Film screening followed by discussion with directors Nathalie Nambot and Maki Berchache and Professor Etienne Balibar, moderated by Nora Philippe.