Entre les frontières (Between the Borders)

A documentary series in French, with English subtitles.

Between Calais and Grande-Synthe, volunteer teams from the association Utopia 56 walk the coastline at night, searching for people in vulnerable situations.

These people are in exile, and they are desperately trying to reach the English coast, whatever the cost and despite the police deployed on site to stop them. The volunteers' daily work is to support people living in extreme precarity and to prevent the worst: shipwrecks at sea. From night patrols to emergency calls to memorial marches, they take us into their everyday lives and their reality, one of mutual aid.

Then, on 14 December 2022, a distress call from a boat at sea turns their world upside down once again…

Director's statement

Since 2003, the Franco-British border has been moved onto French soil, with the aim of stopping exiled people from crossing by keeping them stuck on the coast, without any reception policy being put in place.

Between the Borders looks at the people who work every day to help exiled people at this border. We follow the daily lives of Utopia 56 volunteers, who patrol the coast day and night to help those who are attempting, or have attempted, to cross the Channel. Their life there is punctuated by distress calls, memorials and striking human encounters.

By getting close to the patrol teams, I try to show a human and political reality that is hard to reach through the usual media coverage. The point of view of people who work on the ground every day is of course subjective and committed, but beyond any political judgement, it is above all humane and sensitive.

It is a story of gazes that meet: people helping other people, who are not only living in precarity but also face institutional violence every day. They share the same space, but an invisible border decides who will be who: the European or the undocumented, the hunter or the hunted, the legal or the illegal.

“The place where I work is a lawless zone, because very few human rights are respected here.”

Camille, volunteer with Utopia 56 in Grande-Synthe

Up close

On the ground, the police can be hostile to cameras. Fearing that their testimony might be seen by their families or by the authorities, exiled people very often refuse to speak on camera with their faces visible. For them, not being filmed is a last attempt to preserve their dignity, and the associations take great care to make sure their image is respected. Filming what happens there can therefore be frustrating: on both sides, the story being written at the border is made invisible.

The volunteers' experience seemed to me the right anchor point to describe the situation on the coast, and to show the work of these ordinary citizens. To be able to follow the teams, I had to build trust over the long term. For several years I have been following the work of associations that support people in exile; this is what allowed me to meet many people on the ground and to prove my intentions: to tell, truthfully, what is happening here. From June 2022 to April 2023, I spent one week a month in Grande-Synthe and Calais filming the daily life of these teams.

“I would have liked to hear from them what happened. I think I'm still waiting for their answer, and in my head, the rescue is still going on.”

Léa, volunteer with Utopia 56 in Grande-Synthe

Shipwrecks

The course of events runs alongside the tragedy of the shipwrecks: the memorial marches, the night of 14 December 2022, then the teams' dismay at political inaction. Humanitarian work is left to independent associations. On top of finding themselves in very delicate positions, these volunteers carry out the urgent social work of solidarity, without which these people would be even more vulnerable.

“Once again, it's all left to Utopia to sort out, and I don't think that's right. We try to stay strong, and I think we just want to go back home where it's warm, but if we're not here, there's no one left.”

Amélie, Utopia 56 coordinator in Grande-Synthe, on the night of the shipwreck

“It's not a lack of means. It's abandonment.”

Eliott, volunteer with Utopia 56 in Grande-Synthe

Between the Borders is the story of a government's failure of solidarity, and of the daily lives of alarmed citizens who help families, women and men struggling to survive. It is also, and above all, the daily life of people, French and foreign, who fight for a fairer and more humane situation at the border, despite the doubt and despair brought by the tragedies that keep happening.

Credits

A documentary series in four 20-minute episodes, 87 minutes in total, in French with English subtitles. Written, directed, filmed, recorded, edited, graded and mixed by Victor Desmettre. Original music by Marshall Usinger. Produced by Arturo Mio, Roubaix. France, 2024. Filmed from June 2022 to April 2023, one week a month, in Calais and Grande-Synthe.

Selected at the Jean Rouch International Film Festival (Comité du film ethnographique) and screened at the Rencontres Images de migrations in June 2024. Listed on film-documentaire.fr. Since then, the series has been touring in screenings followed by discussions, from Brittany to Marseille and from Briançon to Boulogne-sur-Mer, in cinemas, community bars and activist venues.

Screenings and mentions

Comité du film ethnographique: the film's page and its screening at the Rencontres Images de migrations, in June 2024

Cinéma Nova (Brussels): the series in the “Cueillir la mort” programme, presented by the director

Le Garage Moderne (Bordeaux): “Bye Bye Borders”, a screening followed by a discussion with Utopia 56 and a concert

Calais la Sociale: the screening and discussion at the M.E.R. in Calais, in February 2025

To organise a screening, get in touch