DOCUMENTARY SCREENING: “WE ARE BATTLEFIELDS”
DECEMBER 16 – 7:30 PM

[French – English subtitles]
“Welcome to the security machine.
Here’s a map of the machinery and an escape plan.”

“We Are Battlefields” is a tool for critical understanding of the business of war and control, this film is also an artistic and philosophical reflection on the power of images and our shared participation in ongoing catastrophes.

Since the early 2000s, Mathieu Rigouste (reseacher in social sciences, involved in collectives against State violence) is been investigating the origins and operation of the security system. He has come to know it intimately. In 2017, 2021 and 2023, he managed to get accredited as a journalist to enter Milipol, the “world trade fair for internal state security”. There, he conducted interviews with arms manufacturers, sales people and communications managers from the war and control show, who responded by treating him as one of their own.

Rigouste decided to confront the images of this global market in violence with the views, the struggles and experiences of those whose bodies and lives are affected by the technologies of power: “[…] I’ve been involved in struggles against State violence for years, both as a supporter and as a victim of police beatings. Along the way, I met Fatou Dieng and Fahima Laidoudi. They became my friends and comrades. They experienced the concrete implications of the security order in their own flesh and blood, and became critical analysts of it. […] Our collective transformation through friendship and struggle is the hidden fabric of this story.”

This film is an investigation into the global business of war and control (and what resists it). It is completely self-produced and self-distributed. A political and economic choice has been made to offer it at a free price. This means you can donate whatever you want/can afford to see it. Your donations allow this project to exist and to continue making tools for struggles: https://www.helloasso.com/associations/aaefp/formulaires/5