3.1 
3.3 
Cover of the Estates General of Cinema booklet n°3, Le cinéma au service de la révolution [Cinema in the service of the revolution], 1968, personal collection
(3. 6)
CINEMA RISES UP
The ESTATES GENERAL OF CINEMA is not a corporatist organisation.
It is not interested in Reform, nor in Participation.
It is open to EVERYONE who considers cinema to be not simply an aesthetic consumer product, but a weapon.
It needs EVERYONE who believes that cinema should not remain locked in the cultural ghetto of the ruling class but participate in the revolutionary struggle.
It can provide activists with resources for political reflection and action.
The rushes of this unfinished film on the Estates General of Cinema stayed in Poland, in the school’s editing room, before probably being destroyed. Today, only one sequence exists from the Derkaouis’ filming in Paris, and was used in Mostafa Derkaoui’s third year film, People from the Cellar (1969).
For a sequence in his film A Shadow Among Others, Abdelkader Lagtaa used a poster from the Estates General of Cinema, brought to Poland by Mostafa Derkaoui, which read: Cinema rises up!
In People from the Cellar (1969), Jean Charvein states:
“Our cinema must be a proletarian cinema and must go towards, and even inside the proletarian classes. It is they who must make these films.”
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Photographs by Abdelkrim Derkaoui, 1969
At the home of Jean Charvein at the time of the Estates General of Cinema in Paris. With Abdelkrim and Mostafa Derkaoui.
With Jean Charvein, Hélène Arnal, Claude Reznik, and Pierre Geller.
With thanks to Claudia von Alemann, Catherine Roudé and Sebastien Layerle for identifying members of the Estates General of Cinema group.
CINEMA RISES UP
A few months after the May 1968 events in France, the Derkaoui brothers travelled by car with two friends from the school to film the Estates General of Cinema in Paris. This movement was born from the political action and rallying of technicians, actors, students and filmmakers during May 1968 (including strikes, protests and demands to halt the Cannes Film Festival.)
The Derkaouis had film stock from their school and found a way to have access to a camera whilst there. Mostafa Derkaoui still had contacts from his year spent studying in Paris at IDHEC before moving to Poland.
The brothers filmed the debates at the Estates General of Cinema and spent a day with the director of photography Jean Charvein and his partner, the film editor Hélène Arnal (Arnal and Charvein both worked on the film Décembre by the Algerian filmmaker Mohammed Lakhdar Amina in 1973) and others involved in the movement.
The Estates General of Cinema was presented as follows:
"Cinema is also a weapon..."
The Derkaouis had film stock from their school and found a way to have access to a camera whilst there. Mostafa Derkaoui still had contacts from his year spent studying in Paris at IDHEC before moving to Poland.
The brothers filmed the debates at the Estates General of Cinema and spent a day with the director of photography Jean Charvein and his partner, the film editor Hélène Arnal (Arnal and Charvein both worked on the film Décembre by the Algerian filmmaker Mohammed Lakhdar Amina in 1973) and others involved in the movement.
The Estates General of Cinema was presented as follows:
The ESTATES GENERAL OF CINEMA is not a corporatist organisation.
It is not interested in Reform, nor in Participation.
It is open to EVERYONE who considers cinema to be not simply an aesthetic consumer product, but a weapon.
It needs EVERYONE who believes that cinema should not remain locked in the cultural ghetto of the ruling class but participate in the revolutionary struggle.
It can provide activists with resources for political reflection and action.
The rushes of this unfinished film on the Estates General of Cinema stayed in Poland, in the school’s editing room, before probably being destroyed. Today, only one sequence exists from the Derkaouis’ filming in Paris, and was used in Mostafa Derkaoui’s third year film, People from the Cellar (1969).
For a sequence in his film A Shadow Among Others, Abdelkader Lagtaa used a poster from the Estates General of Cinema, brought to Poland by Mostafa Derkaoui, which read: Cinema rises up!
In People from the Cellar (1969), Jean Charvein states:
“Our cinema must be a proletarian cinema and must go towards, and even inside the proletarian classes. It is they who must make these films.”
Photographs by Abdelkrim Derkaoui, 1969
At the home of Jean Charvein at the time of the Estates General of Cinema in Paris. With Abdelkrim and Mostafa Derkaoui.
With Jean Charvein, Hélène Arnal, Claude Reznik, and Pierre Geller.
With thanks to Claudia von Alemann, Catherine Roudé and Sebastien Layerle for identifying members of the Estates General of Cinema group.
The role of cinema in transforming and elevating consciousness”, Mostafa Derkaoui’s final dissertation, 1972, PWSTiF archives, Lódź.
Reels from the student films preserved in the PWSTiF archives in Lódź, Léa Morin
Cover of the Estates General of Cinema booklet n°1, Cinema Rises Up, 1968, personal collection
Copyright © 2020 / Léa Morin — CINIMA3 / Talitha