Habiter / Construire

A French company is building a road in Chad, in the middle of the Sahel. Distinct social groups have settled around the work site: labourers from N’Djamena, French expatriates, Chadian managers. Each group has its own housing: buildings for the Whites, containers for the African managers and makeshift shacks for the rest. Although the architectural differences reproduce a class divide marked by the sediments of colonialism, Clémence Ancelin has not made a militant film. She takes the time to observe furniture and objects that reflect a life style, to listen to the horizons imagined by different people, at the end of a road that may not lead anywhere. With opening and closing shots of the white blasting smoke, which echoes the nomads’ campfire and the homes of the neighbouring village, Habiter/Construire has the admirable idea of encompassing the “built” with the “inhabited”: on either side of the road, people who have no need for this infrastructure continue to exist – some because they know the bush “tree by tree”, others because here they can find everything. “This work site changes nothing for us, but it’s a beautiful sight”…