24 heures sur place

Paris, Place de la République, 40 years after Louis Malle’s documentary dedicated to this famous public square and only one year after the huge renewal project by French architects TVK which transformed this well-known buzzy crossroads into a new urban oasis for the Parisian city dweller. An homage to Louis Malle, this film is like a moving polaroid of an entire day of June 2014 in the Eastern side of Paris. Touching on politics, love affairs, work issues, worries and hopes, a vertiginous collection of portraits emerges, giving us a feel for the French capital’s state of being. 24 Heures sur Place is a performance movie. Standing next to Marianne’s monument, Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine have filmed in the square from dawn to dawn collecting everything that can possibly happen in the physical space of a public square in 24 hours. Flux and reflux, fullness and emptiness, lights, darkness and atmosphere redraw the lines of the square through the progressing hours.