Film Screening & Discussion: An Island and One Night (Une Ile et Une Nuit)

PO Box Collective is thrilled to present an exclusive screening of An Island and One Night (Une Ile et Une Nuit) from the French ZAD-occupation of the Quartier Libre de Lentillères, about the rebellious joy of radical land reclamation.

ZAD, or “zone à defender,” has entered the European lexicon as a general term for militant direct collective action against large-scale development projects. To be a “zadiste” is defined in the Le Petit Robert dictionary as “a militant occupying a ZAD to oppose a proposed development that would damage the environment.”

An Island and One Night (1 hour 40 mins) is a fictional film that was made collectively over two years by the residents and users of the Quartier Libre des Lentillères, a self-managed place extending over the last market gardening lands of the city of Dijon. Eight hectares have been occupied and brought back into cultivation for 13 years, in resistance to a concrete “ecocity” project that still threatens them today. The film is self-produced, self-distributed, and based on volunteer participation. It was shot on 16mm silver film and developed over the course of the area’s life, in correlation with it, to the rhythm of events and seasons.

An Island and One Night has screened widely in Europe, but is normally only shown when one of the activists from Lentillieres is with it. Activist/artist Kilian Jörg is visiting North America for two months in the Fall of 2024, and has been invited by the filmmakers to share it with us. Chicago is one of the very few screening sites in North America. Come hear from a visiting European radical who has spent time on many ZADs over the last years and will present the film as an introduction to the political strategy of ZADism.

A cross-Atlantic conversation about the differences and possible alliances between revolutionary projects of reclaiming land, commons and territories for radical ecological and anti-capitalist transformation between Kilian Jörg and Eman Abdelhadi, co-author of Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune 2052-2072.

The event is free and open to the public. The space is wheelchair accessible, has a single stall bathroom, and people are asked to wear masks (free masks will be provided to those who don’t have one).