Alice Diop: La Permanance
Framing and reframing: conceived as a journey through geographies of the margins, this care film festival starts in a hospital in the outskirts of Paris and through the particular multi-layered framing of Alice Diop’s film
La Permanence (On Call).
On the one hand, we can think of the concept of framing as a decision from where and through which perspective to look at the world and in this sense, understand the filmmakers’ choice to take a medical consultancy room in Saint Denis as a frame for looking at France and its migration policy. On the other hand, there is the literal framing of the camera that allows us to follow the actual care work of a medical team and to simultaneously listen through the wretched living conditions of the patients. Who, in the first place, for all kinds of reasons, had left their homes—and took off to take care.
7.00pm Welcome + Introduction to the Festival
7.30pm La Permanence (On Call), Alice Diop, 2016, France, 96 min.
9.10pm Discussion
We are pleased that throughout the festival, participants of the Waiting Times Project will share their responses and take part in our discussions about the films.
Funded by the Wellcome Trust, the
Waiting Times Project opens up the relationship between time and care, exploring how lived experiences, representations and histories of delayed and impeded time shape and create experiences of care, including healthcare.
Please note that we do not show any adverts and the programme will start on time. All films that are not in English are shown with English subtitles.
La Permanence (On Call), Alice Diop, 2016, France, 96 min.
In a small, shabby medical praxis in the Avicenne Hospital in Bobigny/Saint Denis, a suburb in the northeast of Paris, director Alice Diop places her camera askew behind a general practitioner, Dr. Geeraert. Together with her sound engineer Clément Alline, she visits him regularly over a period of two years. Geeraert has consultation hours twice a week. Without appointment, he treats those who otherwise have no chance of receiving medical care. All patients have different migration experiences. A psychologist is present in the room as well and next door, an administrator takes care of the paperwork. Diop clearly assigns us viewers a place and demands our attention, to listen, to recognise a reality as our share of the care-work. Dr Geeraert's consulting time sets a rhythm. His pragmatism, his humour, his factual enquiries and comments form a kind of buffer against the patients’ descriptions along their thresholds of pain. Dr Geeraert’s diagnoses leave no doubt that the physical and mental symptoms they describe are consequences of extremely precarious living conditions, which are the real problem.
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