Joseph Paris
DOCUMENTARY

naked war

A philosophical and artistic reflection on Femen, a graphic film that seeks to see what may not be visible in the images.

  • A film by Joseph Paris
  • Documentary · 2014
  • With Alexandra Shevchenko
  • Oksana Shachko
  • Josephine Witt
  • Amina Sboui
  • Annie Le Brun
  • Benoit Goetz
  • Original music Pierre Paris
  • Production LaClairière Production
  • Coproduction La Chaine Parlementaire
  • Coproduction TV Tours
  • Coproduction CINAPS TV
  • Distribution Arte
  • DVD Edition Éditions Montparnasse
  • With the support of:
  • CNC
  • CiCLIC - Région Centre
  • PROCIREP-ANGOA
  • FESTIVALS
  • 2018 Lisboa Film Festival
  • 2016 Ethnografilm Festival
  • 2015 DocsDF Mexico
  • 2015 AVIFF-Cannes
    Prix spécial du jury
  • 2015 New York Festival of New Cinema
  • 2015 Tartu World Film Festival

Over the course of one year, Joseph Paris filmed the Femen movement from the inside; its acts, its shocks and confrontations, its smokes and noises, but also its circumstances, its doubts, and sometimes its contradictions. One year at the heart of an activism overexposed in mass-media, where its deep reasons remained overlooked, in silence ,or sometimes misconceived. Since meeting these activists in Warsaw in the Spring of 2012, Joseph never left them out of sight.

In the euphoria of beginnings, he filmed the beauty of their spectacular gesture. Then, the tensions of repression and threats, the media disavowal after the celebration, a form of isolation which slowly settled, and a shift towards more radical actions.

The film offers a framework to understand the foundations and the effects of this radical commitment. First, through the activists' own words regarding their actions and their practice of revolt, and also - punctually - via Joseph's interrogations about these representations. But more importantly, through the analyses of Annie Le Brun (poet) and Benoit Goetz (philosopher): their respective work on the question of the body in society, on the political body, offer - each in their own way - a fresh approach to the Femen movement.

Naked War is an essay on the fundamental meaning of this revolt and mode of action

A subjective, lovingly poetic film, filled with doubts and fears about the future of this movement, and carried by a philosophical reflection on the power of images.

Le Monde