Ressac

The surf is a perpetual movement, an ebb and flow. That of the exiles who arrive in Calais, attempt the crossing to England, are repulsed and then start again. The ebb and flow of history, of what has been and threatens to be repeated. A wave that brings the brutalities of the past into the present.

On the beach, Camille, a young volunteer and fictional double of the author, experiences powerlessness and ordinary violence. In an open-air huis clos, he watches helplessly as Amna, an exile in a hurry to cross the sea, confronts an intransigent policeman, the embodiment of a cold, inflexible state apparatus. Between them, a crushing silence: that of invisibilization, of the impossibility of being heard, listened to.

In this suffocating atmosphere, Camille glimpses the trauma of the children to come. For in the incessant stalking and accusations against those who offer refuge, he recognizes the traces of a family legacy that haunts him.