Pacific Club: In Conversation

*This event occurred on Thursday 14th December 2023 at 11:00AM live on Cubitt Community Radio

DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPT: Pacific Club: In Conversation

Extending from Two Films About Love, an exhibition which included a one-off screening of Valentin Noujaïm’s Les Filles Destinées, this event included an in-conversation around Noujaïm’s film practice by the artist, with curator Edwin Nasr on Cubitt Community Radio.

This event accompanied a day-long opportunity to watch Pacific Club (2023) by the Noujaïm, which was available to stream on Cubitt’s website on Thursday 14 December.

This in-conversation departs from the racialised materiality of built environments and social histories of apartheid(s) in Noujaïm’s Pacific Club (2023), to meditate on the relationships between post-war and post-independence policy, real estate, and policing on Black and Arab communities, who were then enduring, and continue to endure, epidemics of violence in the specific context of the French metropole.

This event was supported by l’Institut Français du Royaume-Uni and is part of Feeling Still in a World Which Runs, a programme curated by Seán Elder (Cubitt Curatorial Fellow 2023–25).

Valentin Noujaïm

Valentin Noujaïm was born in 1991 to Lebanese-Egyptian parents in France and graduated from the screenwriting department of La Fémis, Paris, in 2020. His creative focus revolves around three central themes: improvised lives, compressed lives, and extinct lives. Noujaïm breathes life into marginal and eccentric characters within fantastical universes, employing a blend of 16mm film, digital media, special effects, and performances. His work, marked by social and historical issues, delves into the dynamics of power and domination within French society, guided by a profound ideal: revolutionary love or the love of revolution.

Participating in various group exhibitions, Noujaïm showcased his work in venues such as Salon de Montrouge (2022), Galerie Air de Paris, Getting Real Biennale in Los Angeles, Prix Utopi·e at Magasins généraux in Pantin, and Festival Parallèle in Marseille. Notable exhibitions in 2021 include "The Self and the Other" at Saatchi Gallery in London and presentations at CNAC Magasin in Grenoble and Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Currently engaged in a residency at Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Noujaïm previously held residencies at Artagon in Marseille (2022), Académie de France à Rome — Villa Médicis in Rome (2023), and Lafayette Anticipations in Paris (2023). He is actively working on a trilogy of videos titled "La Défense," with the first part, "Pacific Club," premiering at CPH:DOX and receiving a special mention from the jury. The film is now part of the CNAP's public collections, selected for the best short documentary category at the French Cesar Competition. The second film, featuring actress Kayije Kagame, has recently been completed, accompanied by a series of sculptures.

Noujaïm's films have garnered support from esteemed funding organizations, including the Doha Film Institute, AFAC, CNAP, and CNC. They have been featured in prestigious festivals such as Festival international du cinéma de Nyon in Switzerland, DocLisboa in Portugal, Qmra in Qatar, CPH:Dox in Denmark, BlackStar in the USA, DokuFest in Kosovo, Winterthur in Switzerland, and IFFR Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

Edwin Nasr

Edwin Nasr (they/them) is a writer and curator from Beirut, based in Berlin. Their work is broadly concerned with material and visual culture’s propensity to make legible spaces and forms of capture and extraction.