Movies: Les Ateliers Varan

Saud now lives in Paris, caring with devotion and tenderness for his two young children while closely following the drama in Gaza. “It's hard to be far away.” He speaks sadly of his situation as a Palestinian citizen of Israel. When he accompanies hi...

Alix left his native island, Martinique, and its musical culture, to study opera singing in Paris. Portrait of a young man who now embraces all his singularities: his rare countertenor voice, his kohl and his done nails. He works hard to realize his ...

Portrait of a young woman through her relationship to money. The director films her friend for a whole month. The dynamic of the film is based on the bond between the director and Patricia, and on the reactions of this young woman to the financial ...

A secret figure in French underground cinema, Maria Koleva has filmed all over Paris, written about Marx and rubbed shoulders with the likes of Serge Daney. This documentary is a portrait of a histrionic Koleva, trying to reveal her militant, poetic ...

Montmartre, in the square. They pass each other, ogle and play. As much as they sniff, lick and bite each other. The regulars have a field day....

Wakis, a lumberjack in the Central African Republic, works with his family collecting wood to process into charcoal. But faced with its increasing scarcity—and to avoid conflicts with his neighbours—he must “hunt” trees further and further away from ...

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Documenting the transformation of Bưởi Road in Hanoi, from a labyrinth of houses and small businesses to a highway, with demolition crew destroying buildings - some still inhabited, gleaners looking for metal scraps to sell for a living, and people l...

A look at the life of society's outcasts through three locations: the Fleury-Mérogis prison, a low-income housing project in the Paris region, and the shacks of a vacant lot at the gateway to Saint-Ouen. A reflection on the idea and use of freedom....

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About questioning, cycling and moving on....

In 1985, the audiovisual training association Varan organized a documentary film workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa. The 12 young trainees filmed their community and their country from the inside, beyond the poor authorized journalistic clichés. ...

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In Paris, there is a network of men married to young Filipinas, chosen through an international agency. Here is the portrait of a couple from this business: immersed in a happiness that drowns the spectator....

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For centuries, along the Mekong river, the brick kilns in Mang This used to be the symbol of the delta’s economic prosperity. Now, the last brick kilns finally come to an end....

The Vietnamese State has decided to modernise and to establish vast tourist complexes along the entire coastal zone of the agricultural region of Quang Nam, forcing peasants off their lands. The film recounts the reactions of the inhabitants, many of...

The grandfather tries to explain the family history, the traditions, privileges and duties of the eldest son to his grandson, who agrees to stay on in the village, unlike others of his generation who have left for the city....

Manuel raps about his life, his thoughts, his whole world of revolt, surrounded by the kind attention of the villagers who welcome him into their homes. Inhabited by his lyrics, he tries to live them and pass them on....