La Mémoire dure

In a ‘language initiation class’, primary school children who have just arrived in France, often due to family regrouping, follow intensive language training so that they can join a class corresponding to their level. Non-French-speaking children, aged 6 to 12, and a school teacher face to face with an almost insoluble dilemma. These are the main characters of a film in which the distance between two countries, two languages and two ages is explored. What emerges is a territory where our models are overturned, where our adult and European words resound too loudly’ often with a false ring. The children from China, Black Africa, North Africa, South America and elsewhere are faced with this schoolroom captivity, which we have all experienced then forgotten. Yet, these children escape through glances, dreams and an experience of the world they have brought with them in their small bags, and remain as obstinately silent as water carriers. The camera accompanied them for nine months. Little by little, it uncovered stories of lives, emotions, ups and downs, misunderstandings, secrets, efforts made’ Communication and collision… how memory resists letting itself be forgotten.