Direct Action captures resistance in real time, unfolding within the ZAD near Notre-Dame-des-Landes, a long-standing anti-capitalist occupation against airport construction. Rather than dramatizing protest, the film immerses us in daily acts of care and survival: digging trenches, cooking, planting and repairing. Moments of joy, a piano recital, a birthday, a party – remind us that resistance is also lived in community.
Echoing Chantal Akerman, directors Cailleau and Russell focus on duration, silence, and gesture. Direct Action is not just about protest, it performs it. A quiet, persistent refusal. A cinema of presence. A radical act of staying.
German 
English