VISIONS DU RÉEL: MASTERCLASS & ECAL FILMS
04–13.04.2025
Nyon

MASTERCLASS: RAOUL PECK

Filmmaker, Haiti

Born in Haiti in 1953, and raised in Congo, New York, France and Germany, Raoul Peck is one of the most important filmmakers of the late 20th and early 21st century. Over the course of the last forty years, the filmmaker has anchored his complex body of work, which includes internationally acclaimed feature films and documentaries, in a deep political commitment. The genesis of his cinematographic tales stems in equal measure from his multicultural personal experience, his journey as an activist, and what he refers to as a “Marxist reading” of the global economy.

An indefatigable narrator of tales as seen from the viewpoint of those subject to domination, Raoul Peck has also questioned the links to capitalism in his own personal history, haunted by the ghosts of colonialism. His films examine omissions from official Western history, shining a light on aspects ignored by this account, often sketching a portrait of politicians or artists who have openly deconstructed it, such as Patrice Lumumba in Lumumba, La Mort du prophète, a feature film released in 1990, followed bythedocumentary Lumumba (2000), James Baldwin in I Am Not Your Negro (2016), and, most recently, Ernest Cole with Ernest Cole: Lost and Found (2024). Summoning the past to examine the present and rejecting any call to neutrality, Raoul Peck’s work is a reinvention of activist cinema, which he transforms using a cinematographic, poetic and highly subjective language, freely intermingling genres and formats. Exterminate All The Brutes, a hybrid series in four parts (produced by HBO) – which will also be screened during the Festival – is a perfect example of this: it is a journey back in time, a radical re-examination of the history of European colonialism, from America to Africa, using personal, visual and literary narration to starkly revisit the darkest hours in human history right up to the present day. It won a Peabody Award in 2022, and was also the subject of a critical and literary essay.

An event in collaboration with the Cinémathèque suisse. 

Text: Visions du Réel  

FILMS 

As part of Visions du Réel, from April 4 to 13, films by ECAL's Cinema Department and alumni are scheduled. 

SECTION OPENING SCENES   

Qui part à la chasse, directed by Lea Favre, Bachelor Cinema 2024 diploma film

INTERNATIONALE COMPETITION

Niederurnen, GL, directed by Anna Joos, Master Cinema ECAL/HEAD 2024 diploma film

NATIONALE COMPETITION

Toute Ma Vie, directed by Matias Carlier, Bachelor Cinema alumni, image by Myriam Guyénard, Bachelor Cinema alumni
 
Lettres Au Docteur L, directed by Laurence Favre, Master Cinema ECAL/HEAD alumni.
 
Colostrum film editing by Myriam Rachmuth, Bachelor Cinema alumni, sound by Theodora Menthonnex, Bachelor Cinema alumni

Les Papas directed by David Maye, Bachelor Cinema alumni
 
Les Vies d'Andrès film editing by Karine Sudan, Bachelor Cinema alumni
 
Olga, directed by Elie Grappe, Bachelor Cinema alumni