The 20th Century is the Century of the photograph. For the first time in History, ordinary people have been able to keep souvenirs of their lives. Around the world, millions of amateur photographers have, without realizing it, chronicled their time, allowing us to highlight littleknown events or to offer an unusual perspective of periods we think we know.
From Paris in the 1930s to the Congo in the 1960s, this documentary will examine the stories of men and women who witnessed our History, through their personal and intimate memories. Their images are much more revealing about the reality of history than “official” archives, showing the subjective, the lived-in, and the emotional. The people who took these pictures aren’t all still around today to talk about them. Exploring these photos will tell the story of the 20th Century on a human scale.
Based on these these photographs, by analyzing them from a critical, historic approach, we have decided to extrapolate, to imagine their lives, their feelings, and even let them speak. By exploring where reality meets fiction, we want to give life back to these “ordinary” heroes, to get close to them, and turn these unknown people into our contemporaries.
1. Dan Love - Vietnam 1969
2. Dan Slobin - An American in Moscow
3. Andrée Kuentzmann - Waiting for the Liberation
4. Jean et Natascha – A brief encounter at the labor camp
5. Jean Sarda - On Petain's construction sites
6. Victor Bermon - An officer on the Yangtze
7. Louis Danton - A soldier and his doll
8. Robert Talpain - A fighter for the Popular Front
9. Bill Manbo - An American in camps for Japanese
10. François Dullin – A soldier in Mururoa
11. Wolfgang Thomas – A citizen of East Germany in 89
12. Mr X – A Frenchman in the brothels
13. Andrée Greffrath – A childhood in colonial Africa
14. Marcel Binet – A sailor in Indochina
15. Anuschka and Antoinette – The road to Katmandou
16. Stanislas Antonowicz – A Frenchman in India
17. Vickie Henderson – A black singer in Switzerland
18. Leon Collin – A doctor in a penal colony
19. Richard and Michael – Love at the time of AIDS
20. Pierre Louis – A gay man in the Interwar Years
Direction: Jérôme Lambert, Philippe Picard, Jean-Thomas Ceccaldi, Lucie Cariès, Delphine Deloget, Jean-Marie Barrère, Agnès Poirier
Production: Bonne Compagnie & ECPAD for ARTE France