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Les Mutins de Pangée

Created in 2005, Les Mutins de Pangée is an audiovisual company of production and theatrical and home video distribution. The company produced 4 documentaries : Chomsky and Cie and Chomsky and the power (2008/2009 - Olivier Azam - Daniel Mermet), Que Faire ? (2009 - Pierre Merejkowski), Bernard, ni Dieu ni chaussettes (2010 - Pascal Boucher) and Grandpuits et petites victoires (2011 - Olivier Azam). We also participated in the production of Fin de concession (2010 - Pierre Carles) and in the theatrical distribution of Mourir ? Plutôt crever ! (2010 - Stéphane Mercurio). The society also develops an activity of video publishing with about 10 DVD in its catalog.

Contact us : contact@lesmutins.org

Howard Zinn, a popular American history (Project)

Directors : Olivier Azam & Daniel Mermet - Cast : Howard Zinn - Genre : documentary, history - Stage of devlopment

Synopis : With the tremendous success of his book, A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn radically changed the way Americans see themselves. His friend Noam Chomsky says that Zinn litteraly transformed a generation’s conscience. Zinn talks about those who have no voice in the official History : Slaves, Indians, deserters, textile workers, union men. On two occasions in Paris and Boston we were lucky enough to meet and film him. Towards the end of his life, Howard Zinn said , ‘‘I want to be remembered as someone who enabled people to experience hope and power something they never did before.’’ That is exactly the reason why we want to make this film.

Note of intent

In 2007, we were shooting Chomsky & Co, a documentary based on the philosophy of Noam Chomsky. The leading linguist and world-famous political essayist had been Howard Zinn’s companion during the struggle waged by activist movements opposing the Vietnam War. The decision to meet the author with a camera seemed like a perfectly natural next step. Thus, in May 2009, we went to meet Zinn at Boston University and continued filming interviews during his visit to Paris in June of that same year. Although he was 87 years old, this bright-eyed man’s enthusiasm made us forget his advanced age. He passed away several months later. The power and richness of the interviews he granted us were so great that we have decided to make a film by shooting additional sequences in the United States and in France and by exploring American and French archive images.

In our documentary, Zinn draws us into a story that encompasses the era from the Crash of the Great Depression in 1929 up to 2009. Born into a working-class family, Howard Zinn grew up in New York during the Great Depression. Bombardier in the US Navy fighting against fascism during World War II, confirmed pacifist post-Hiroshima, a teacher committed to the cause of young people fighting for black American Civil Rights, leader of the movement against the Vietnam War, a playwright whose work has been performed worldwide and author of the seminal work: A People’s History of the United States, 1492 to present. This man, whose life spanned the 20th century, offers us an analysis illustrated with exceptional personal experiences and rarely revealed historical facts.

Trailer (English subtitles)

Chomsky & Co

Directors : Olivier Azam and Daniel Mermet - Cast : Noam Chomsky, Normand Baillargeon, Jean Bricmont - Genres : Documentary, History Language : English - French - Runtime: 110 min

Storyline : At a time when the world seems resigned to helpless submission, the work of Noam Chomsky is a radical antidote for all those who aspire to the downfall of the manufacture of despair powered by the watchdogs of the intelligentsia and the media.

Untiring and unclassifiable, Chomsky, “the world’s most popular and widely quoted intellectual”, unyieldingly pursues his quest to expose the mechanisms of domination with an astonishing vitality that puts fresh perspective on historical dogma and stereotyped patterns of thought, where most intellectuals just want us to adopt their viewpoint.

Quite to the contrary, Chomsky urges us to develop our own critical awareness of the various forms of authority and the principles that uphold them. He shows that social change is something we ourselves can actually make happen.

And he stands not alone. From Boston to Brussels, we will be meeting research scientists, journalists and activists. Jean Bricmont, for one, and Normand Baillargeon, author of the “Short lesson in intellectual Self Defense”, which could have provided a complementary heading to this documentary in its engagement against cynical conformism and feebleminded rebellion.

But above all, this film is about climbing mountains and… the ascension of the Pic du Canigou.

Festivals : Brasilia International Film Festival - Brazil (November 2009) / 5th traverse film festival (July 2009, USA) / Festival du film francophone Bratislava - FIFFBA -Slovaquie (2009) / Vancouver International Film Festival - Canada (Octobre 2008) / Leeds International Film Festival - Grande Bretagne - (Novembre 2008)

Trailer (French version)