Atopie/Utopie
Une proposition géopoétique
Cécilia de Varine
2000 - 15 min - Mini DV - Couleur - France

"82 quai Perrache" is likely to be the official address of political exiles arrived in Lyon. There, at the gate of the town, is a place set by the North-South motorway, where people seeking asylum are received, advised and helped in their applying by Forum réfugiés. All day long people come in, wait, are received and leave – people from many different faraway countries, whose trip has most of the time been long and painful.
Near that place is the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône : this is a pointed empty piece of land, and a free area at the entrance of the town.
The premises of Forum Réfugiés and the confluence are close not only in terms of geography, but also in a symbolic way : both are places where never-ending flows meet. This led us to the following idea : why not imagine a new building for receiving asylum applicants in the very place of confluence ?
One purpose of this film is to make people talk about such political as well as poetic proposition and think about how France presently deals with political asylum.