2022 Jean Haritschelhar Chair: ‘The poetics of testimony in the Basque tetralogy of filmmaker Thomas Lacoste´

‘The poetics of testimony in the Basque tetralogy of filmmaker Thomas Lacoste´, the programme organised by Université Bordeaux Montaigne and the Etxepare Basque Institute as part of the Jean Haritschelhar Chair, will take place in the Jean Borde room of the Maison des Sciences de l´Homme, in Bordeaux, on 14 November, from 9:00 to 12:30.

At 9 a.m., the Vice-President for Research at the University of Bordeaux-Montaigne, Nathalie Jaëck, will join the Etxepare Basque Institute Director for the Promotion and Dissemination of the Basque Language, Garbiñe Iztueta, and Director of the IKER Laboratory, Urtzi Etxeberria, to begin the day´s activities.

The morning will include three talks as part of the section entitled ´The conflict, its transformation and the peace process in Euskal Herria in the films of Thomas Lacoste´.

After screening the films ´La Paix Maintenant – Une exigoire populaire´ and ´Pays basque & liberté´ – Un long chemin à la paix ´, Thomas Lacoste himself will give a lecture entitled ´Making the invisible visible: a return operation in a cinematographic tetralogy´.

The afternoon session will be divided into two parts, focusing on the democratic hypothesis and the documentary cinema of Thomas Lacoste.

Jean Casenave (UBM-IKER) will give a lecture entitled ´A poetics of testimony: from armed conflict to spoken conflict´, while Jesús Alonso Carballés (UBM-AMERIBER) will give a lecture entitled ´The city as witness: the traces of the Basque conflict, memory and oblivion in the public space of the Basque Country´.

The second half of the afternoon will be devoted to a panel discussion led by Marguerite Vappereau (UBM-ARTES) and Clément Puget (UBM-ARTES). The subject will be ´Documentary cinema: testimonies and creation in the films of Thomas Lacoste´, with participation by the filmmaker Thomas Lacoste. The programme will close with the screening of the film ´L´hypothèse démocratique - Une histoire basque ´, in the Olympe de Gouges hall.