Films by Michel Balagué

Germany, France 2024, 216 min
by Guillaume Cailleau, Ben Russell

Taking its title from the tactical protest strategy of the same name – "an action that seeks to achieve an end directly and by the most effective means" – DIRECT ACTION is a contemporary portrait of one of the most important militant activist communities in France – a 150-person strong rural collective that survived multiple violent eviction attempts by the French state, successfully resisted an international airport expansion project, created an autonomous zone from 2012-2018, and spawned a remarkable new ecological movement in 2021. Through a collaborative and uniquely immersive observational approach, DIRECT ACTION documents the everyday of a diverse ecosystem of activists, squatters, anarchists, farmers and government-labeled 'eco-terrorists' – so as to better understand how the success of a radical protest movement can offer a path through the climate crisis facing us all."The jury wants to salut the very patient and non judgement dedicated approach. We deeply enjoyed the quality of observation of this radical film." Tizza Covi, member of the jury said at the award ceremony.

Germany, Taiwan, Togo 2023, 17 min
by Elom 20ce, Musquiqui Chihying, Gregor Kasper

An experimental poetic investigation of one of the world's largest e-waste recycling sites, Agbogbloshie, as a contact zone of complex global economic, social, power-political and technological processes.No dialogues with English intertitles.

Germany 2014, 21 min
by Guillaume Cailleau

Interior, day. Oncological Research Center at the Charité, Berlin, January 2011. A film team meets with researchers. Using analogue filming methods, the film team records experiments performed on mice. The mice are forced to undergo diverse measures. Whether the film deals with one or several tests, one or several mice is difficult to ascertain – the tests and the naked animals are too similar. Parallel to this, the film team documents their own activities, necessary to make the recordings. In LABORAT, filmmaker Guillaume Cailleau interweaves the levels. He documents examinations performed on the object with great precision, while simultaneously reflecting on the process of the documentation itself. Distance to the object becomes suspended. The object becomes the subject, the spectator an accomplice. A tapestry of images. Unease sets in.