PACIFIC CLUB
France, Qatar, 2023
16 min.
- Synopsis
- Curatorial presentation
In 1979, the Pacific Club was opened in a basement of La Défense — the business district of Paris. It was the first nightclub for Arabs from the suburbs; a parallel world of dance, sweat, young loves, and one-night utopias. Azedine tells us the forgotten story of this club and of a generation who dreamed of integrating into France.
A dance walk through La Défense is a mnemonic and performative exercise that awakens memories of a nightlife from youth — a youth like any other, crazy and full of love stories, but also haunted by the imprints and crises triggered by drugs, AIDS and racial tensions. Pacific Club is a space, more specifically, a club in 1979’s Paris, but also an act of resistance. A resistance of those pushed to the margins or excluded from society, for reasons of ethnicity, sexuality and social class, as much as a form of solidarity between those who share common traits, between individuals united by an Arab, North African or immigrant identity, whom the French society of the time refused integration. Valentin Noujaïm’s film focuses on Azedine, who was 17 years old at the time, but speaks, in fact, of the collective destiny of an entire generation. (Dora Leu)
