International Competition Award: FUCK THE POLIS by Rita Azevedo Gomes

Georges de Beauregard International Award: FRÍO METAL by Clemente Castor

Special mention of the International Competition Jury: COBRE by Nicolás Pereda

French Competition Award: BONNE JOURNÉE by Pauline Bastard

Georges de Beauregard National Award: HORS-CHAMP, LES OMBRES by Anna Dubosc, Gustavo de Mattos Jahn

Cnap (National Centre for Visual Arts) Award: DES MILLÉNAIRES D’ABSENCE by Philippe Rouy

Special mention of the Cnap (National Centre for Visual Arts) Jury: L’AMOUR SUR LE CHEMIN DES RONCETTES by Sophie Roger

First Film Award: FANTAISIE by Isabel Pagliai

Special mention of the First Film Competition Jury: LOS CRUCES by Julián Galay

Special mention of the First Film Competition Jury: SI NOUS HABITONS UN ÉCLAIR by Louise Chevillotte

Claudia Cardinale Foundation Award: FERNLICHT by Johanna Schorn Kalinsky

Cine+ Distribution support Award in partnership with GNCR: MORTE E VIDA MADALENA by Guto Parente

Flash Competition Award: گل‌های شب ِدریا by Maryam Tafakory

Special mention of the Flash Competition Jury: A PRELUDE by Wendelien van Oldenborgh

Special mention of the Flash Competition Jury: CONTROL ANATOMY by Mahmoud Alhaj

Special mention of the Flash Competition Jury: LENGUA MUERTA by José Jiménez

Alice Guy Award: ABORTION PARTY by Julia Mellen

Renaud Victor Award: BULAKNA by Leonor Noivo

Special mention of the Renaud Victor Jury: SI NOUS HABITONS UN ÉCLAIR by Louise Chevillotte

High School Award: NEXT LIFE by Tenzin Phuntsog

Special mention of the High School Jury: MIRACULOUS ACCIDENT by Assaf Gruber

The Second Chance School Award: NEXT LIFE by Tenzin Phuntsog

Special mention of the Second Chance School Jury: JACOB’S HOUSE by Lucas Kane

Audience Award: LA JUVENTUD ES UNA ISLA by Louise Ernandez

International Competition Award: FUCK THE POLIS by Rita Azevedo Gomes

Georges de Beauregard International Award: FRÍO METAL by Clemente Castor

Special mention of the International Competition Jury: COBRE by Nicolás Pereda

French Competition Award: BONNE JOURNÉE by Pauline Bastard

Georges de Beauregard National Award: HORS-CHAMP, LES OMBRES by Anna Dubosc, Gustavo de Mattos Jahn

Cnap (National Centre for Visual Arts) Award: DES MILLÉNAIRES D’ABSENCE by Philippe Rouy

Special mention of the Cnap (National Centre for Visual Arts) Jury: L’AMOUR SUR LE CHEMIN DES RONCETTES by Sophie Roger

First Film Award: FANTAISIE by Isabel Pagliai

Special mention of the First Film Competition Jury: LOS CRUCES by Julián Galay

Special mention of the First Film Competition Jury: SI NOUS HABITONS UN ÉCLAIR by Louise Chevillotte

Claudia Cardinale Foundation Award: FERNLICHT by Johanna Schorn Kalinsky

Cine+ Distribution support Award in partnership with GNCR: MORTE E VIDA MADALENA by Guto Parente

Flash Competition Award: گل‌های شب ِدریا by Maryam Tafakory

Special mention of the Flash Competition Jury: A PRELUDE by Wendelien van Oldenborgh

Special mention of the Flash Competition Jury: CONTROL ANATOMY by Mahmoud Alhaj

Special mention of the Flash Competition Jury: LENGUA MUERTA by José Jiménez

Alice Guy Award: ABORTION PARTY by Julia Mellen

Renaud Victor Award: BULAKNA by Leonor Noivo

Special mention of the Renaud Victor Jury: SI NOUS HABITONS UN ÉCLAIR by Louise Chevillotte

High School Award: NEXT LIFE by Tenzin Phuntsog

Special mention of the High School Jury: MIRACULOUS ACCIDENT by Assaf Gruber

The Second Chance School Award: NEXT LIFE by Tenzin Phuntsog

Special mention of the Second Chance School Jury: JACOB’S HOUSE by Lucas Kane

Audience Award: LA JUVENTUD ES UNA ISLA by Louise Ernandez

“Isn’t that a bit too fast? Yes, it’s too fast.” The first shot of the film: the camera is inside a car, one of the locals at the wheel. “This is the road built by the deportees.” This road leads to a pink sandstone quarry, the exploitation of which led the Nazis to establish, at a place called Le Struthof, just a stone’s throw from the Alsatian village of Natzwiller, a concentration camp—the only one located on what is now French soil. In the tradition of major films dedicated to the memory of mass crimes and the totalitarian horrors of the 20th century, The Blue Line stands apart through the humility and intimacy of its approach. In order to evoke and make us feel the violence and suffering hidden behind the beauty of the landscape, it relies solely on living memory—the memories of present-day residents who, as children, witnessed it all. Marie Dumora’s camera follows in their footsteps, lingers on their faces, listens to their words, looks through their windows to imagine what they once saw. The narrative unfolds at the pace of a slow cartographic, landscape and human exploration before leading us to the camp itself, where a remarkable guide and historian takes over to draw us closer to the horror experienced by the prisoners. The Blue Line is not a film about the Struthof camp, but about the trauma caused by the installation of Nazi hell in a corner of Alsace –about its imprint, still visible today, on people and on the land. There is admirable and tender modesty in the gaze cast upon these admirable human beings. For at the heart of The Blue Line lies the spirit of resistance. Not Resistance with a capital “R”, no monuments, no official speeches or moral proclamations—just a carved wooden box, a bit of food slipped into a laundry bag, a few singular gestures and objects that the spoken memory eventually allows us to touch. Traces from the past of a dignity, a greatness of spirit, that Marie Dumora’s tact and restraint place before our tired souls—before it is too late.

Cyril Neyrat

Interview

Marie Dumora

Most of your films have been shot in eastern France, following encounters along the way. What was the genesis of The Blue Line?

I’ve made around ten feature films in the East. One character would lead me a few kilometres further to the next film, like a thread of Ariadne. I devoted three films to Nicolas’s young mother, Sabrina, and to her sister, Belinda. In one scene in Belinda, their father Franz tells the story of how his parents met in the Schirmeck camp, where the family—Yenish—had been interned. They were eleven and fifteen at the time, managed to escape, fell in love, had eight children and great-grandchildren. While filming my previous film, Loin de vous j’ai grandi, Nicolas, then thirteen, had been placed in a care home in Schirmeck—by force of fate—just a few hundred metres from the camp where his great-grandparents had met as children. So I decided to devote a film to that camp, whose presence still haunts the region and the memories of the last witnesses and their descendants. The question of deportation had already surfaced, often indirectly, in many of my films—without me intentionally seeking it out. It seemed more than necessary to pay tribute to those whose martyrdom had already been evoked in earlier films, and to all the others.

Why did you choose to make a film in the village of Natzwiller, in Alsace, and to collect memories of the Struthof camp’s history?

Direct witnesses are rare and very elderly, but their so-called “old” memory is vivid. The children of the victims carry the memories of their parents, mingled with their own imagination. They are growing older too. There was great urgency in recording them.

The film is based largely on testimonies, on the evocative power of speech and a few letters read aloud, but there are no archive images. Why this choice?

I didn’t want to make a historical film, but rather to try to embody history, to bring it to us through the prism of the memories of those who lived it—inevitably subjective. That subjectivity, with its sometimes exaggerated focus on one detail around which memory crystallises, an image, became the thread of the narrative—with visions so vivid and present that they are described as if they happened yesterday.

From the very first sequences, the region’s topography imposes itself. Each testimony is rooted in a specific place or landscape. Was this approach a defining feature of your project?

It asserted itself very early on. As I wandered through the valley and its villages, the landscape was striking: at 800 metres above sea level, a dazzling view. Three peaceful villages, a few hundred inhabitants who’ve lived there all their lives—Catholics in one, Protestants in another, and Anabaptists. Something between the beginning of the world and its representation on a miniature scale, landscapes from certain coming-of-age novels, with the idea that one must cross a mountain pass to glimpse a bit of the wider world. The beauty of the world and the barbarity of humankind. I decided to film each person quite literally in their own frame, in which they are fully embedded. Often these people have never left the house or street where they were born. The view they see each day hasn’t changed. From their windows, they still seem to feel the horror of those columns of deportees marching past, the SS, the dogs swirling around. Orders still echo in their ears. The deadly stench of the smoke rising from the camp is still perceptible to them. So I chose to film this story through their gaze—quite literally, through their windows, their lace curtains. Also in places where events really took place, and that have hardly changed.

The camp’s situation seems particular.

You have to imagine that this region was annexed. The Nazis lived among the population, staying in local homes and requisitioning rooms. The camp where they went to “work” was only a few metres away. Young Wolfgang and Hildegarde, for example, children of one of the camp commanders, went to the same school as the mother of one of the film’s protagonists. The little girl would go to the commander’s home for afternoon snacks—he would subtly question her about the possible hiding place of her older brother, a deserter.

The quarry plays a major role in the site and in the film.

Indeed, the granite quarry just below the camp is a fundamental scenographic space. The presence of pink granite had attracted the Nazis, eager to use it in the construction of their grandiose monuments. The deportees were worked to death there—all while ensuring productivity, of course. It was also a place where the civilian population had some, albeit forbidden, contact with the deportees. And it is now an archaeological site, where Juliette Brangé conducts excavations in close collaboration with Michaël Landolt, the camp’s director, who is himself the grandson of a Struthof deportee. The aim is to document the quarry in the same way we document antiquity. By unearthing and preserving the objects—however mundane (screws, swabs)—we collect hard evidence of the camp’s existence for future generations, in opposition to any potential Holocaust deniers. What is striking and deeply moving about this quarry, left untouched until now, is the lingering memory, the trace of all those men’s existence—which, in a way, still imposes itself on and permeates the place.

The structure of the film is complex, with certain people reappearing, links between them gradually revealed, and stories developing. How did you construct it in writing and in editing?

The idea was to follow the flow of vivid memories, the comings and goings of recollection, what we recount of it, the objects we find and pass on, which speak for all the others and carry the narrative forward in very tangible ways. The idea of the box and the letters arose during filming and continued to evolve in editing. The structure was built up like concentric circles, drawing ever closer to the heart of things.

In terms of image, was the idea of a lightweight, handheld shooting setup central from the start?

That’s how I’ve shot all my films—operating the camera myself, never changing the lens: I use the one that most faithfully reproduces human vision. That means I have to move forward or back, depending on whether I want a close-up or wide shot. I walk backwards for long stretches to follow people walking, to follow their trains of thought. My presence is not discreet. I’m always accompanied by a sound engineer. The idea is to make the filming apparatus clearly visible—conceived as a kind of fictional space in which truth or authenticity may ideally emerge. It’s at that distance that I establish my cinematic position—and try to create a space that feels, I hope, right for the viewer.

The Blue Line is a film about memory and transmission that makes a crucial contribution to the history of the Holocaust.

Part of my aim was to raise awareness of this little-known camp in France—one that held Nacht und Nebel detainees (resistance fighters, often very young, deeply opposed to Nazi ideology), as well as Jews and Roma people. I also wanted to offer another perspective—that of the local residents, seen from the reverse angle, who found themselves literally caught up in the chaos and who sometimes displayed exceptional moral rectitude and dignity. I hope this allows us to identify with them, to ask ourselves: what would I have done? To feel, too, a little of the prisoners’ suffering—to bear, in a way, a portion of their burden, and to share it. What struck me most was how these people stand, and stood, upright. Their courage, their dignity, and their modesty.

Interview by Olivier Pierre

Technical sheet

  • Subtitles:
    English
  • Script:
    Marie Dumora
  • Photography:
    Marie Dumora
  • Editing:
    Catherine Gouze
  • Sound:
    Emmanuel Croset, Xavier Griette, Aline Huber
  • Production:
    Michel Zana (Dulac Productions), Alice Ormières (Dulac Productions), Sophie Dulac (Dulac Productions )
  • Contact:
    Elise La Marche

Filmography

  • Marie Dumora

    • Le square Burq est impec, 1997, 30'
    • Après la pluie, 2000, 64'
    • Tu n’es pas un ange, 2002, 60'
    • Avec ou sans toi, 2004, 90'
    • Emmenez-moi, 2006, 90'
    • Je voudrais aimer personne, 2010, 105'
    • La place, 2012, 95'
    • Forbach forever / forbach swing, 2015, 120'
    • Belinda, 2018
    • Loin de vous j’ai grandi, 2021