Existentialism French film night: Marguerite Duras’ Le camion with translators’ discussion

Organized by Eireene Nealand

When: July 3 2021, 20:30 Bulgarian time

Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81313152596?pwd=WnVidEJNMTNERzlsa3hrVkZlTEhrZz09

Educational screening of Marguerite Duras’ experimental film 'Le camion' (1977) - 120 min, French audio with English subtitles

The screening is organized by Eireene Nealand, currently a resident of the Sofia Literature and Translation House, who has spent nearly a year writing about Marguerite Duras and thinking about how her juxtapositions of image and text shift our potential to coordinate our perception and imaginations. She is also a translator of the Duras’ screenplay 'Le camion', together with Alta Ifland in the English language.

'Le camion' is, ostensibly, a story about a female hitchhiker picked up by a communist truck driver, its characters discuss everything from the Communist Party’s 1968 invasion of Prague to the earth’s position in the planetary system.  Notably, however, the characters discussed in the film’s voice-over are never shown on-screen. Instead, viewers are left to imagine (and project?) the characters -- with help from the narrative voice-over and a series of cutaways that show Marguerite Duras and Gerard Depardieu reading from the script in Duras’ living room.

The movie’s screening will be followed by a short discussion with the translators of the translator's of the movie's script - Eireene Nealand and Alta Ifland. Everyone is invited to share their experiences.