COEUR DE PIERRE
Claire Billet, Olivier Jobard | France 2018 | 89 Min. | OmeU
At the age of twelve, Ghorban came to France as an unaccompanied minor after a 12,000-kilometer journey from Afghanistan. In France, he lived in child care and workd with psychotherapists to process war traumas, his escape and the experience of growing up in a foreign country. For more than eight years, the film accompanies Ghorban through the jungle of asylum regulations and personal challenges on his path into adulthood before, as a young adult, Ghorban takes a momentous decision: to go on another journey and visit his family in Afghanistan.
Director: Claire Billet, Olivier Jobard
Production: Quark productions
Biographies
Claire Billet While studying in 2004, Claire travelled to Afghanistan to make a 23 min. documentary film on the “women’s park”. After graduating with a Master’s degree in journalism, she moved to Pakistan, and to Afghanistan, where she lived for 6 years. Learning the Dari language, covering the conflict, she realized the News narrative was too Manichean, too fast, for her to reveal the complexities of a conflict. Claire engaged in documentary making to shed light on the dismal consequences of war. She accompanied Luqman & Fawad from Afghanistan to France, Ahmad & Jihan From Greece to Sweden. She followed the tormented exiled of pacifist Haya, and the love story of French Noémie and Afghan Faiz in Calais. Claire has worked on migration issues for 5 years now, telling unique stories of individuals to provoke the audience’s empathy.
Olivier Jobard Olivier entered the Louis Lumière School of Photography in Paris when he was 20, and joined the Sipa Press agency in 1991. For 15 years, he covered conflicts around the world: Bosnia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Iraq… In 2000, he travelled to Sangatte, a French camp for illegal migrants, where he met people who fled the same wars. Overwhelmed by their long-term consequences, he chose to dedicate his work on migration issues. Olivier started to document the migration routes, focusing on human stories, getting as close as possible to the migrants, and accompanying them on the long run. He followed Kingsley in his journey from Cameroon to France. He joined Slah from Tunisia to France, and Luqman from Afghanistan to France… In parallel, Olivier Jobard started to work on the “European fortress ”: from Ukraine to Lampedusa, he documented the European borders from the perspective of migrants. His work now revolves around the second part of the migrants’ journey: integration in their host country.
