Tehachapi, feature-length directed by JR.

Festival of the Imaginary

As part of the exhibition ‘Le Musée imaginaire d'Oli’, the Inside Out projectcreated by the artist JR is being presented on the Daniel Cordier esplanade at Les Abattoirs. As an echo to this participatory work, this Thursday at Les Abattoirs will see the screening of his latest documentary, Tehachapi, which will be premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in 2023.

In October 2019, artist JR obtained unprecedented permission to work in one of California's most violent supermax prisons: Tehachapi. There he meets a group of 28 incarcerated men, many of whom are serving life sentences for crimes committed when they were minors. JR invites them to take part in an art project, never anticipating the repercussions the mural might have.

Tehachapi follows the journey of the participants as they share their stories, reconnect with their families and embark on a path towards rehabilitation. The film illustrates the power of art as a vehicle for hope, reveals the transformative potential of individuals and offers a poignant look at the humanity behind prison walls.

The screening of Tehachapi will be followed by a debate with Philippe Leconte, head of the Association des visiteurs de prison en Occitanie and a member of the Groupe local concertation prison.

Tehachapi, directed by JR, 2023/ Colour / France, Switzerland Format Scope / Running time 92 minutes. Distribution: mk2.Alt

The Toulouse and Midi-Pyrénées Film and Human Rights Festival (or FCDH) is run by a group made up of local representatives of 7 international solidarity associations in the Midi-Pyrénées region: Amnesty International, CCFD Terre-Solidaire, ACAT, L'école des droits humains et de la Terre, Les Amis du Monde diplomatique de Toulouse, Médecins du Monde and Médecins sans Frontières.

The aim of the festival is to raise public awareness of the defence and promotion of human rights.
This year, the works presented deal with subjects as diverse as threats against environmental activists, the chaotic journey of migrants, women genocidaires in Rwanda, the trauma of the war in Ukraine, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, New Caledonia, police violence, torture...

The Festival will screen 18 films between 6 and 26 January 2025, spread over some forty screenings, in more than twenty cinemas in around twenty towns in the Western Occitanie region.

Who is JR?

The artist JR (born in Paris in 1983) works at the crossroads of photography, public art, cinema and social engagement. Over the last two decades, he has created monumental public projects and site-specific interventions in cities around the world. From sticking houses in a Brazilian favela (2008-9), to organising a picnic on the other side of the border between the United States and Mexico (2017), working alongside 400 volunteers to create a trompe-l'œil at the Louvre in Paris (2019) or organising a procession around the enormous banner of a child refugee in the Sahara desert (2022), JR seeks to involve everyone in the act of artistic creation, with the hope of creating dialogue and bringing about social change.

He has exhibited his work and installations internationally, including at Stockholm's Kulturhuset Stadsteatern with his first exhibition ‘Déplacé.e.s’ in the Nordic region (2024), the Venice Biennale (2022), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2019), and the GNV Triennial (2020). After opening at the Brooklyn Museum, United States (2019), his solo exhibition ‘JR: Chronicles’ was presented at the Saatchi Gallery, London, United Kingdom (2021), the Groninger Museum, Netherlands (2021), Kunsthalle Munich, Germany (2022) and the Lotte Museum, Seoul, South Korea (2023).

JR has also directed four feature-length documentaries: Women Are Heroes (2011); the Oscar-nominated Faces and Places (2017), co-directed by Agnès Varda; the Emmy-nominated Paper & Glue (2021); and most recently, Tehachapi, which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival 2023.

Programme :

https://www.festival-cinema-droitsdelhomme.fr/
https://www.jr-art.net