Camp d'Argelers (2009)

Overview

In February 1939 the history of Argeles, a quiet fishing town, suddenly changes. Catalonia was occupied by fascist troops, 465,0000 refugees flee across the border. The French authorities order the construction of a camp on the beach... The film evokes the existence of the Argeles sur Mer concentration camp (Pyrénées-Orientales), from its creation in January 1939 to its closure in September 1941. In 1939 , filmmakers and activists, shocked by this camp, managed to smuggle a camera behind the wire fence. The few images taken directly from the Argeles camp were filmed with a hidden camera and many were seized and destroyed. “El Campo de Argeles” proposes to recreate these lost images and intersect camp life with archival images and testimonies collected throughout Europe: former internees in the camp (Spanish Republicans, Jews...) and also guards and witnesses.