https://danielgarber.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/garber-march28-13-interview.mp3

Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM, looking at high-brow and low-brow movies, indie, cult, foreign, festival, documentary, genre and mainstream films, helping you see movies with good taste, movies that taste good, and how to tell the difference.

When does life become art and art life? Is there a clear border? What is the role of the observer in the lives of the observed or the influence of a filmmaker on the film’s subjects? More specifically, what about the lives of the residents of the banlieux, the working-class suburbs that ring Paris, with their ethnically diverse  but largely immigrant population?

They are a large and important part of France but are almost invisible in popular culture; if you see them at all in North America,  its usually on the news or in a story about demonstrations, riots, or protests against the police actions there.

Well there’s a film, an observational documentary called CHECK CHECK POTO, that gives a look at their everyday lives over the course of a few years. This fascinating, funny and always surprising film records the teenagers at a public drop-in centre called Mosaique, in the Villette Quatre  Chemins a Aubervilliers. It was made by artist, filmmaker and documentarian Julia Varga, known for her projects, films, and exhibitions in France, Egypt, and on-line.

Julia Vargas speaks with me in studio after her KODAK Lecture at Ryerson University. (For more information about the artist, please contact Elegoa.)