The second edition of Lab Doc, Meditalents' documentary writing residency, took place in Marseille in 3 sessions of 5 days spread between July 2021 and February 2022.
- The 1st session took place from July 5th to 9th 2021
- The 2nd session took place from October 11th to 16th 2021
- The 3rd session took place from February 3rd to 7th 2022.
The godmother of the second edition of Lab Doc was Catherine Alvaresse, Director of documentaries at France Télévision.
" In a world at a standstill and a society that is increasingly fragmented, fractured and inward-looking, how can we project ourselves into the future and dream about it?
Yet a future remains possible, by rediscovering hope and self-affirmation. And the documentary genre, which helps us gain perspective, is invaluable today for deciphering and sharing our collective and intimate experiences. I hope the LabDoc Mediterranean Encounters will be a wonderful opportunity for everyone to meet and express themselves, on the shores of the promising Mediterranean Sea. "
“Controra” is a docu-journey in a city, Taranto, famous above all for the Ilva pollution affair. Within its perimeter, several resistant energies are born: they try to redraw its limits, by creating social and cultural spaces. Max, Mirko, Cosimo and Giovanni guide me inside Taranto, the city where I was born and which I left abruptly when I was little. “Controra” is my act of love for her.
In the West Bank, 20 kilometers south of Bethlehem, a family of Bedouin shepherds have lived in the desert for generations. One day, two representatives of the Israeli army come to tell them bad news: This land is a military zone, the farm risks being demolished.
Bezness: n. mr. Tunisian man expert in sentimental manipulation and ready to do anything for financial compensation or to obtain European papers. My father, his friends, my cousins... everyone seems to have been a Bezness around me. Fascinated by romantic scams after discovering how my parents met, I went to Tunisia to discover the Beznesses, as well as the women who let themselves be seduced by their game.
Marina Gulbahari, famous actress in Afghanistan, is a political refugee in France. Traumatized by a childhood built on the pillars of violence, she decides to cross borders to find her mother in Iran. This journey, marked by landscapes, encounters and solitudes, will confront her with a physical and interior journey. The search for repair in the face of trauma, in a journey where among the shadows one searches for light: overcoming and surpassing one's own past.
Tripoli, Lebanon, 2021. The great northern city, lively and anarchic, in which Joe, Bilal, Omar, Ahmad and the others try to build themselves as best they can. To feel alive, free; they practice free running on the concrete curves of the international fair, an impressive but forgotten work by the great Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer. Abandoned and in ruins, the site is a reflection of the country. Two worlds rub shoulders, two temporalities mingle and try to get out of it.
A supermarket in which security guards and thieves meet, eye each other and challenge each other. A security PC that looks like a watchtower where Victor observes video surveillance screens all day long. He recounts his arrival in France and takes a keen look at the world. A factory town, which takes on a human dimension and becomes a place of refuge that we can live in.
At the beginning of time, humans and animals spoke the same language, they understood each other. To reconnect with this common interiority and allow the possibility of dialogue, the Artois forest school, a primary school located on the edge of a 7-hectare wood in Duisans, near Arras, immerses children in the “wild experience”. It is the first “wilderness school” in the Hauts-de-France region and this year, an educational project combining wildlife tracking and philosophy risks changing the relationship with the world of these little eco-citizens of the next world; and ours?
Sara, a lonely little girl, grows up in Cairo with Woody, her Ethiopian nanny. Twenty years later, Sara leaves for Canada, in search of her “heart mother”. Family archives and images of the present mingle, childish daydreams and harsh reality confront each other. The journey to find Woody takes unexpected paths. What if Sara's quest hid another?
Shu Aiello lives in Marseille. She alternates between director and production manager. She has worked alongside directors as diverse as Jean Louis Comolli, Yossif Pasternak, Yvan Lemoine, Yves Anchar, Jean Yves Collet... As a director, she has written and directed some twenty documentaries for television, many of them devoted to questions of identity and society raised by the colonial history of France and its overseas territories. She has also directed a number of children's fiction series and reports for channel 5.
Moroccan director, screenwriter and producer of documentary and fiction films. She will accompany the winners throughout the second edition of Lab Doc. Born in Casablanca, Morocco, in 1970, Leïla KILANI studied economics in Paris, obtaining a DEA in History and Civilization of the Mediterranean before preparing a thesis at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. Leïla Kilani has always dreamed of being a clown. Today, she lives between Paris and Tangier.
A freelance journalist since 1997, she turned to documentaries in 1999, with a number of highly acclaimed films: "Tanger, le rêve des brûleurs", 2002, about would-be immigrants to Europe, "Zad Moultaka, passages", 2002, "D'ici et d'ailleurs", a documentary on industrial memory in France, and "Nos lieux interdits" (2008). She then directed "Sur la planche" (2011), her 1st feature-length fiction film, which was selected for the Directors' Fortnight at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and at over 80 festivals. She is currently working on finishing her second feature film: Indivisions.
Claire Dixsaut has been training audiovisual, film and multimedia professionals in the art of pitching for 23 years. She teaches at the Fémis, SCAM, INA, production companies and broadcasters. She shares tips and tricks on her website lepitch.art.
Claire Dixsaut has worked for Arte, for Canal+ documentaries, and as head of international co-productions at Turner/TimeWarner. She then oversaw multimedia content at Microsoft France.