The Véo de Muret cinema is hosting a unique screening of the documentary Tehachapi, directed by JR, in the presence of Caroline Mourgues of the Human Rights League, Sunday January 19 at 10:30 a.m. This screening, proposed by the Vive le association Cinema in Muret (VCM), will be followed by a debate and a citizen aperitif.
The film by JR, a world-renowned artist and photographer, explores a monumental project within the Tehachapi prison in California, one of the most violent in the United States. The artist collaborated with 28 inmates to create “The Yard,” a work that captures their portraits and tells their stories via his website. Each photographed face becomes a portal to a handwritten testimony, giving a voice to these often forgotten people.
“JR works on street art, decentralizing museum art to reach populations far from this environment, explains Lison Séguéla, mediator for VCM. He does not give fixed explanations on his works, leaving it up to the viewer to interpret. With Tehachapi, it is also about seeing how art transforms and humanizes individuals, even in extreme environments.”
Caroline Mourgues, co-director of the Human Rights League of Toulouse, underlines the impact of this approach: “This film reconnects with our humanity by humanizing prisoners guilty of serious offenses. It invites us to question our own prison system , which tends towards a logic of mass incarceration. Through this work, JR questions the representation we have of prisoners and the impacts on their loved ones. This also allows us to think about the future, particularly with. the project for a third prison in Muret.”
Today, France is reaching prison population levels never before recorded, with more than 80,000 prisoners incarcerated.
Tariff : 5 €. muret.veocinemas.fr
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