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Smugglers' Songs
(Les chants de Mandrin)

Directed by Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche.
With Jacques Nolot, Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche, Christian Milia-Darmezin.
France, 2011, digital video, color, 97 min.
French with English subtitles.

00:00 / 00:00
      Smuggler's Songs introduction and post-screening discussion with David Pendleton, Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Rabah Ameur Zaimeche.

      Ameur-Zaïmeche takes an unexpected turn into period-film territory in his latest work, a film in praise of banditry. Louis Mandrin was a notorious mid-18th century France smuggler who became a folk hero for setting up thieves’ markets where stolen goods were sold without the extravagant taxes levied by the royalty. Smugglers’ Songs is a fictionalized account of his confederates’ activities after his 1755 execution. They attempt to carry out their utopian vision of an alternative society based on a barter economy, collective living and a libertine spirit, with song and poetry flowing freely. Although the film is an ensemble piece, Jacques Nolot steals the show as a noble sympathetic to Mandrin’s men, who helps them publish a collection of ballads written or inspired by the brigand. – DP

      Part of film series

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