On 27 October 2005, two Parisian youths, Bouna and Zyed, were killed in the suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois while being pursued by police. Trying to elude their pursuers, they hid in a power substation where they were electrocuted, virtually burned alive.
EN
“In spring 2006, I received a call from Jean-Marie [Straub] asking me if I knew where the death of Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré (two young boys who were killed, electrocuted inside a power station while hiding from the police, on October 27, 2005, in Clichy-sous-Bois) had taken place. I answered that I did not know exactly, but that I would try to find it. So I went to the place, made a drawing of the power station area and brought it to Jean-Marie [Straub] and Danièle [Huillet]'s place. I think they told me at this moment that the Italian TV channel RAI3 had commissioned them, along with other filmmakers, to make a little film which would be a sort of sequel to Rossellini's Europa '51. They asked me if I wanted to come along with them and said that Jean-Claude Rousseau would be shooting the film with his miniDV camera. So, we went to the place. During the shoot I sat on the ground, holding Jean-Claude [Rousseau]'s tripod so that it wouldn't move during the pans. (In 2018, Jean-Claude [Rousseau] made a film from the rushes of Europa 2005, 27 Octobre for Jean-Marie [Straub]'s 85th birthday called Une vie risquée). Jean-Marie [Straub] and Danièle [Huillet] asked Jean-Claude [Rousseau] to do the editing, which he did by himself, and he proposed to them the film as we know it: five versions of the same sequence of two shots. Jean-Claude [Rousseau] asked me to finalize with him the two headlines appearing at the end: "chambre à gaz" (gas chamber), "chaise électrique" (electric chair).”
Christophe Clavert1
