This session focuses on the transnational bonds of solidarity forged between the Sanrizuka and Larzac movements, two of the longest and most significant land defence struggles of the 1970s. Both gave rise to original forms of protest and collective action. As in Japan, the peasants of the Larzac region of southern France refused to leave their land, which was threatened with expropriation for the planned expansion of a military base on their plateau. The Larzac, like Sanrizuka, became an enduring symbol of resistance, with a movement that lasted for years.
Both struggles forged strong international links with other social, political and environmental movements. In the 1980s, a delegation from Sanrizuka’s joint struggle groups visited the fields of Larzac, as well as other sites of territorial and anti-nuclear resistance across Europe. These exchanges fostered mutual solidarity and the sharing of tactics and experiences.
The two films in this screening were made by young militant filmmakers working in amateur formats. Both document the history of their respective struggles while emphasising the solidarity between farmers and workers. The Spring of the Great Offensive is a militant ciné-tract made in Super 8 by the Association for Solidarity with the Kansai Sanrizuka Struggle. It focuses on the occupation of the airport control tower and documents the first 13 years of the Sanrizuka struggle, highlighting alliances between political and social movements. The version to be screened is the French version produced by ISKRA, reflecting the international interest that the Sanrizuka struggle had aroused among militant movements, including in France.
Lo Larzac, un país qui vòl viure is a feature-length Super 8 film shot at 18 frames per second by workers and student activists from Millau, a village on the edge of the Larzac. For five years, week after week, they documented the collective resistance of an entire region against the expansion of the military camp.
The Larzac: a land that wants to live (Lo Larzac, un país qui vòl viure / Le Larzac, un pays qui veut vivre)
Michel Cabirou, Michel Barbut and Didier Durant | France | 100’ | Digital | Occitane and French spoken, English subtitles
This feature-length Super 8 film, shot at 18 frames per second, was made by workers and student activists from Millau, a village at the foot of the Larzac plateau, who spent five years, week after week, filming the struggle of an entire region against the expansion of the Larzac military camp. The film is divided into three complementary parts: firstly, the situation of the workers of Millau, a town with a disastrous economic record. Secondly, it focuses on the question of agriculture and the presence of the army in the area, as explained by the farmers themselves. Finally, the film documents the evolution of the peasants’ struggle and its similarities with other international actions. The authors try to summarise the union forged between the workers and farmers of Larzac.
The fight in the Larzac, as in Sanrizuka, gave rise to a wide range of productions, including pamphlets, publications, poems, songs, photographs, illustrations, and posters. It also generated several films, some of which were widely distributed and played a key role in spreading the movement’s message, such as Gardarem Lo Larzac! (Fight for the Larzac) by Dominique Bloch, Philippe Haudiquet and Isabelle Levy (1974). Others, such as the film included in this screening, were produced and shot by amateur filmmakers, militant workers, students and also by farmers, such as the film diaries of Léon Maillé.
First UK presentation.
Copy preserved by La Cinémathèque de Toulouse and courtesy of Bernadette Boussuge.
Preceded by:
The Spring of the Great Offensive (大義の春 – Le printemps de la grande offensive)
Association for Solidarity with the Kansai Sanrizuka Struggle (dir. Koyama Osahito, French version by ISKRA) | 1978 | Japan | 30’ | Digital | French spoken, English subtitles
This is a 34-minute Super 8 film made in 1978 by the Association of Solidarity with the Kansai Sanrizuka Struggle, directed by Koyama Osahito and presented here in the French version produced by ISKRA. The film was made at a turning point in the struggle in Sanrizuka, documenting the actions against the first flights in Narita. The film chronicles the Sanrizuka struggle and the spring events that led to the occupation of the airport’s control tower by one of the factions in the opposition struggle. The film refers specifically to the events in March 1978, which marked the opening of the first runway of the airport and a realignment of the opposition forces, faced with a new stage of the struggle, and as the film refers, a movement from a defensive stage of the fight to an offensive one. The film tells the story of the 13-year battle in Sanrizuka quickly and decisively. The film refers to the networks of support and solidarity between the farmers and several other movements formed around the struggle in Sanrizuka, uniting labour and environmental struggles in a single movement.
Image courtesy of La Cinémathèque de Toulouse.
Please see our Access page for more information regarding content warnings for this screening.