film collection “The Ways of the World”
Stéphane Breton founded and was artistic director of the documentary film collection “The Ways of the World” (“L’usage du monde”), produced by Serge Lalou for Les Films d’Ici, the television channel Arte and the musée du quai Branly.
The six films of this collection were broadcast by Arte and are published by les éditions Montparnasse in a DVD set.
“The Ways of the World” was intended as a memory of local humanity at the dawn of the 21st century, just as Albert Kahn sent out photographers and filmmakers to the four corners of the globe to make “The Archives of the Planet” (“Les archives de la planète”) at the beginning of the last century.
These films are set in the folds and seams of the modern world, in places that are too close to be exotic and too exotic for comfort, places where no tourist goes but where people live who are as like us as two peas in a pod.
The collection’s title pays tribute to the writer Nicolas Bouvier.
2010 We need Happinness (Il nous faut du bonheur)
a film by Alexander Sokurov and Alexey Jankowski
an old Russian woman exiled in Iraqi Kurdistan
a film by Alexander Sokurov and Alexey Jankowski
an old Russian woman exiled in Iraqi Kurdistan
2008 Northern Light (Lumière du Nord)
a film by Sergey Loznitsa
a village in the north of Russia
a film by Sergey Loznitsa
a village in the north of Russia
2008 Coal Money (L’argent du charbon)
a film by Wang Bing
Chinese truck drivers selling coal on the roads
a film by Wang Bing
Chinese truck drivers selling coal on the roads
2007 The Men from Forest 21 (Les hommes de la forêt 21)
a film by Julien Samani
a forestry site in Gabon
a film by Julien Samani
a forestry site in Gabon