CAE - RESISTANCE – Watching an animated film about exile

The students take part in the national "Lycéens au cinéma" programme organised by Studio 43 for the screening of the animated film "La Traversée", directed in 2021 by Florence Miailhe. 

A preparatory session helps them understand the link between the study of the novel they did in French lessons (Eldorado written by Laurent Gaudé in 2006) and this film : the exile, the challenge of leaving one's country to save one's family members. But the aim is also to introduce them to the genre of animated painting by showing a very short sequence in which the main features of the film are identified : the oil painting on glass, the stop-motion animation and the recording of children's voices in particular.

After watching the film, a quick brainstorming session is used to complete the initial information about the technique used in the film and the way the topic of exile is dealt with

Then they think about the values of the RESPectOl project that the film (the heroine in particular) illustrates : 

-dignity that migrants must always preserve 

-determination shown by the heroine to protect her brother (fraternity)

-resistance to safeguard their identity

-freedom offered to the survivors at the end of the film

-heritage, because when the director originally saw reports on migrants from Africa, she thought of her grandmother who had left Odessa to flee the pogroms with her 10 children, which triggered the making of this film.

At the end, the students are asked to identify the main emotion they felt when watching the film. They have to justify their choice by selecting 5 scenes : each one creates a mind map on which they show the link between the emotion and the scene, which they illustrate with images from the film.