Loin de Verdun

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Movie
Original title Loin de Verdun
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 2015
length 52 minutes
Rod
Director Xavier Delagnes
production Co-producer: École Nationale Supérieure d'Audiovisuel

Loin de Verdun (Eng. "Far from Verdun") is a documentary film that illuminates a repressed chapter of the Notre-Dame de Garaison monastery school .

background

When projects were announced to mark the commemoration of the First World War , a team of teachers from Garaison , 40 km east of Lourdes, decided to research the history of the place with the students in order to revive and pass on historical memories of Garaison. 2,000 civilians with German or Austrian passports were interned in the former convent school during the war. A known inmate of the camp was Albert Schweitzer in 1917. Holidaymakers who happened to be in France were also imprisoned. In 2014, this resulted in a collaboration with the University of Toulouse's Audiovisual Academy (ESAV), the Center de Recherches et d'Études Germaniques (CREG) of the Toulouse-Jean Jaurès University and the Archives of the Hautes-Pyrénées Department. In this context, the then 26-year-old Xavier Delagnes was able to make his film Loin de Verdun. Garaison, un camp d'internement durant la Première Guerre mondiale (52 ', 2015).

Subject

By staging an impressive dramaturgy by interlacing different perspectives and points of view, Delagnes gives new life to traces of the events of 1914–1918 found on site. The viewer gets a glimpse of the interior of the camp through reports and letters as well as photos taken by some authorized prisoners and, together with the historian José Cubéro, takes a look at its military administration. Delagnes also lets numerous contemporary witnesses have their say: the Spanish Frère Guillaume (brother Wilhelm), the Schweitzer couple and the Bulgarian priest Mito Abadji of Macedonian origin; the female voices are represented by interned Germans Gertrud Köbner and Helene Schaarschmidt.

reception

“What particularly impressed me about Xavier Delagnes' documentary is the way in which, although not a historian, he managed to construct a historical discourse. Based on witness reports, archive material and photographs, he managed to tell his story of the camp, remaining true to the historical sources. With sensitivity and an eye for detail, he illuminates the different aspects of camp life, the memories it left behind, its rediscovery by historians. What is particularly remarkable is the way in which the various discourses are intertwined: that of contemporary witnesses, then that of today's “residents” of and around Garaison, that of the historian. No aspect is neglected! And above all and in general, at a time when it is customary to rely on emotion and sensation in an exaggerated way, Xavier Delagnes appeals to our intellect, to our ability to judge - demanding, but by no means excessive. A great achievement! ”(François Giustiniani, Head of Archives Department Hautes-Pyrénées)

“The excellent documentary 'Loin de Verdun' by the Toulouse director Xavier Delagnes, which was released on January 19th. is shown in the Eurocampus, shows how the search for traces of the past can be impressively portrayed using film. "(German School Toulouse)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Antje Burisch: Albert Schweitzer life line. In: Children's Villages - Albert Schweitzer Children's Villages and Family Works. Retrieved September 8, 2019 (German).
  2. ↑ German-French Day 2018 Loin de Verdun - PINDL private high school - Regensburg. Retrieved September 8, 2019 .
  3. ↑ When the film was made in 2015, Xavier Delagnes was studying at the Audiovisual Academy and had already made several feature films and two documentaries, including a portrait of the researcher Emiliano Lorini (2014). Since then, u. a. the comedies Gazouillis (Twitter, 2017) and Notre-Dame de la ZAD (2018).
  4. ↑ Events 2018. In: Event calendar of the Institute for History. University of Regensburg, accessed on September 8, 2019 .