Everything's coming together while everything's falling apart: The ZAD

The film on the ZAD focuses on Europe’s largest autonomous territory, located close to Nantes in France. The ZAD (zone to defend) emerged from the struggle against a new airport. In 2012 the French state's attempt to evict the zone was fiercely resisted by more than 40,000 people. The police have not set foot there since. Today 250 people in 60 collectives live permanently at the ZAD occupying the wetlands, fields and forests. The ZAD is a successful example of the way resistance and the creation of alternatives need to happen at the same time. While people take back control over their lives with self-organized bakeries, workshops, a brewery, medicinal herb gardens, a rap studio, weekly newspaper and a library, they hinder the construction of an unnecessary, ecologically disastrous airport project. The film is built around a group discussion with activists living at the ZAD.

Everything’s coming together while everything’s falling apart" consists of six films on the climate justice movement. For more info, visit:
https://www.ressler.at/everythings_coming_together/

Director and producer: Oliver Ressler
Camera: Thomas Parb
Additional camera: Rudolf Gottsberger
Editing: Oliver Ressler
Location sound, sound design, re-recording mix, editing supervisor and color correction: Rudolf Gottsberger
Participants of the discussion at the ZAD: Basile, Isa, JJ, Marsios, Toni
The footage from Operation Cesar is © LES FILMS DU ROCHER by Jean-François Castell, “Notre Dame des Luttes”, 2012
Lighthouse performance: Le Chant des Pavillons

“Everything's coming together while everything's falling apart: The ZAD” is part of Oliver Ressler’s ongoing project “Everything's coming together while everything's falling apart” that follows the struggles against a fossil fuel-dependent economy.

This film was commissioned by < rotor > center for contemporary art, Graz and the Maxim Gorki Theater, Berlin, and funded through additional support of ERSTE Foundation and Otto Mauer Fonds.

Special thanks to: TJ Demos, Christiane Erharter, Matthew Hyland, John Jordan, Erden Kosova, Anton Lederer, Margarethe Makovec, Walter Seidl.