IPPI-Med seminar
Screenings - Listenings - Debates
Urban collapses: images, emotions and politics in Naples and Marseilles

The next session of the seminar Images du Politique / Politique de l'image en Méditerranée will take place on 11 and 12 May 2023 in the Amphithéâtre of the MMSH in Aix-en-Provence (5 rue du Château de l'Horloge).

The seminar will take place in two parts:
11 May 2023 (4.30-7.30pm): Screening of Francesco Rosi's Main basse sur la ville (1963), a masterpiece of Italian neo-realism, followed by a debate introduced by Cesare Mattina (AMU, Mesopolhis) and moderated by Gaël Marsaud (Primitivi collective).

12 May 2023 (09:30 - 12:30) : Screening of 3 short films by the Association des Auteurs Réalisateurs du Sud-Est (AARSE), part of the Noailles Open Forum series. Listening to the sound documentary by Mikaëla Le Meur, Sandrine Musso and Maud Saint-Lary, Autour du 5 novembre 2018, stories collected as part of the "Après l'effondrement" project. Screening of video chronicles produced by the Primitivi collective. Followed by a debate introduced by Gaël Marsaud and moderated by Cesare Mattina, with the participation of members of AARSE, Mikaëla Le Meur (LAMC) and Primitivi film-makers.

Housing problems have a dramatic impact on our cities. Building collapses, imminent threats, evacuations and rehousing are moments that lend themselves particularly well to filming. The images and sounds are fuelled by feelings of horror, prompting sadness but also anger. They arouse indignation and revolt against property speculation, against urban policies and neglect, against corruption. To the benefit of public action? To the detriment of political analysis? Bringing Naples and Marseille together here is not the umpteenth attempt to compare two urban contexts in the Mediterranean that are ultimately very different. Rather, it's an opportunity to see how, in cities that are traditionally cursed and have often taken on this stigma, the collapse of buildings becomes a metaphor for all a city's ills. The events give rise to wide-ranging, highly emotional debates, and send those who witness them through images and sound back to the collapse of the city as a whole. What are the resources of documentary writing and cinematographic fiction to introduce the variety of actors involved in rendering justice to these situations? This double IPPIMED seminar will bring together researchers and film-makers to look at the problems of housing and housing policy, with two half-days of screenings/listenings/debates.