DIRECT ACTION (2024) w/ filmmaker Ben Russell in person

DIRECT ACTION (2024) w/ filmmaker Ben Russell in person

Block Cinema partners with Onion City Experimental Film Festival and the Climate Crisis + Media Arts Working Group to present the Chicago premiere of Ben Russell and Guillaume Cailleau’s award-winning experimental documentary observing a militant environmentalist community in France.

(Ben Russell and Guillaume Cailleau, 2024, in French, English, and Arabic with English subtitles, 212 minutes, DCP)

DIRECT ACTION brings viewers into France’s rural Notre-Dame-des-Landes commune, whose activist inhabitants live and work to protect a “Zone to Defend” (ZAD) against development in the region. With a commitment equal to that of their subjects, filmmakers Ben Russell and Guillaume Cailleau deliberately observe the work and play of daily life in the commune: agriculture, domestic chores, recreation—and preparations for a major protest action against a proposed reservoir project. DIRECT ACTION inscribes the relaxed pace of commune life through long takes shot on vivid 16mm film, drawing parallels between the utopian aspirations of environmentalist action and of ecological filmmaking. As the state’s repression of the protest turns shockingly violent, mirroring similar actions against water defenders in the United States and Canada, the film’s careful framing becomes an ever-more powerful reminder that, for militants behind a barricade or for observers behind a camera, the most powerful act of resistance is simply standing one’s ground.

“The film isn’t just an infinitely pleasant experience— it’s also incredibly refreshing to see images of resistance that are hopeful, generative and optimistic, almost contagiously so.” –Matilda Hague, Filmmaker Magazine

Block Cinema is thrilled to partner with the Climate Crisis + Media Arts Working Group, Chicago Filmmakers, and the to welcome co-director Ben Russell for the Chicago premiere of DIRECT ACTION. Following the screening of the 216-minute film (which will include a 5-minute intermission), Russell will appear for discussion and audience Q&A.

Presented with support from the Climate Crisis + Media Arts Working Group of the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs at Northwestern University, and in partnership with Chicago Filmmakers as part of the 2025 Onion City Experimental Film Festival.

Host or Publisher The Block Museum of Art