After her master class, we will be screening Alice Diop's film La Permanence (2016, 90 min.)
Part of the film series "Blackness in French and Francophone Film" organized by the Columbia Maison Française and co-sponsored by the School of the Arts.
"We are in the service of the free medical center at Avicenne Hospital in Bobigny. Assisted by a psychiatrist, the general practitioner often speaks in English, trying, under no illusion, to repair bodies and minds. How are these beaten, starving, traumatized people to be helped using medicine’s inadequate means? Over time, tensions appear between Dr. Geeraert and his administration, as his medical certificates affect the administrative procedure and access to free care. By choosing to stay in the confines of the surgery, Alice Diop underlines the doctors’ ability to listen and their lucidity as to the limits of their action. In doing so, she accentuates the presence of the outside world, the vast off-screen world of poverty and violence that – also – makes up our society. » (Charlotte Garson)
Columbia University co-sponsors of Blackness in French and Francophone Film: Maison Française; School of the Arts; Institute for Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality; Institute for African Studies; Columbia Global Centers/Paris; European Institute; and Society of Fellows/Heyman Center for the Humanities.
This film series is presented with support from the Paul LeClerc Centennial Fund, Cultural Services of the French Embassy, la Scam, and the Knapp Family Foundation.
