Les Sentinelles du Port

Made between 1999 and 2014, the film shows the mutation of the port of Marseilles. The city has taken over the port area. The battle waged by the dockers for over sixty years is lost. With it disappears a certain vision of solidarity, of the collective, of the organization of work. The film takes us to the docks where struggles and resignations clash, jostle, experiment, and are lived in fraternity or betrayal. The film takes us to the docks where struggles and resignations are confronted, jostled, experimented with, and lived out in fraternity or betrayal: should we submit to the imperatives of competitiveness or resist? Should we submit to the imperatives of competitiveness or resist, to the detriment of sea transport that chooses other ports? What to think of the omnipotence of the CGT union? What to choose between the sense of collective and the emerging individualism? What to understand about the port activities of the past and the upheavals of the last fifty years? What is the choice between hard labour harnessing trailers on the deck of a ship at 35 degrees and more humane but job-killing handling technologies? How to look at the ghosts of the former port and the urban tsunami unleashed at the beginning of the 21st century? We are placed alongside the actors and witnesses of the transformations of the port and the city, to answer a fundamental question of society.