De l’autre côté

Although not conceived as a unit, three of Chantal Akerman's documentary works are sometimes described in relation to one another, as a "triptych turned towards current events" (Patrick Straumann), whose connecting points lie in the experiences of borders and exclusion, and in the infiltration of the present and history.

DE L’AUTRE CÔTÉ takes us into the no man's land between Mexico and Arizona, where innumerable people try, mostly unsuccessfully, to cross the border into the US. The harrowing stories of the migrants are juxtaposed with shots of the countless obstacles that Akerman surveys on long journeys: border towns, towering metal fences and barren landscapes populated by trigger-happy ranchers and border police.