Create your film about imaginary disasters - 2^nd edition

The imaginary of disasters: creating together to better navigate uncertainty.

Why imagining disasters makes us stronger

Neuroscience shows us: our brain does not differentiate between an intensely lived experience and an experience imagined with precision. It is this particularity that gives the imaginary its transformative power. When we create narratives about possible disasters, whether climatic, technological or social, we are not just telling stories. We are building neural pathways that prepare us, individually and collectively, to better react to the unexpected.

On October 11, 2025, during the second edition of this workshop at the Maison écocitoyenne in Bordeaux, twelve animated short films were created in a single day. These films, all viewable online on this page, testify to the creative richness that emerges when citizens are given the tools to express their representations of risks. What is striking is the diversity of modes of expression: with the same materials, paper, scissors, camera, each film tells a unique story. “Flood Alert” by Éliott and Virginie explores life-saving actions in the face of rising waters. “Danger and Seveso” by Zoé pedagogically explains industrial risks. “Fire and forest fire” by Carole integrates the dimension of solidarity, the one that is not written in official texts but naturally emerges when we imagine together.

The day revealed something essential: even with relatively few participants, collective creation comes to life. The mediators from the Ligue de l’enseignement, young people in civic service trained on environmental issues, themselves made several films, transforming this moment into an opportunity for authentic co-construction. “The way we are together when we do things, the listening that can exist between us, it can actually be felt in the works that are produced.” (Benoît Labourdette, during the presentation)

The imaginary is not an escape from reality, it is a tool to better inhabit it. These stories created together may help us all better navigate the storms to come.

Cut-out paper animation: a technique accessible to all

This device invented by filmmaker Benoît Labourdette uses the animated paper cut-out technique, a simple but powerful method that allows everyone, regardless of age or experience, to create a film in less than an hour. This approach democratizes audiovisual creation: no need to know how to draw, no need to master complex software. Scissors, paper, a camera, and above all your imagination are enough.

This artisanal technique has something reassuring in our hyper-technological era. It brings us back to the manual gesture, to patient cutting, to concrete manipulation. It is also a metaphor for resilience: with simple means, we can create something strong and significant. The twelve films made this year testify to this: from the humorous story about nuclear risks to the poetic fable about mutations caused by chemical pollution, each creation finds its own voice.

What is at stake in the act of collective creation

Participating in this workshop means living several experiences in one:

• Exploring one’s own representations: What do you see when you think “disaster”? How do you imagine survival, mutual aid, reconstruction? These questions, approached through creative means, allow access to parts of ourselves that are sometimes buried. The films created reveal this diversity: some imagine flights to Mars, others neighborhood solidarity, still others surprising ecological mutations.
• Transforming anxiety into creative action: Faced with climate crises and the uncertainties of our era, many feel a form of paralyzing eco-anxiety. Creating means regaining the power to act, transforming fear into narrative, anguish into shareable images. Even slips of the tongue become significant - when “fire” becomes “incident”, it’s our ambiguous relationship with danger that reveals itself.
• Sharing plural imaginaries: During the collective screening that closes the workshop, everyone discovers the visions of others. This diversity of perspectives is precious: it shows us that faced with the same risks, we don’t all have the same representations, the same imaginative resources. As Serge Tisseron emphasized during the screening: “An imaginary that we share, an imaginary from which everyone can return, an imaginary that everyone can enrich around the narrative, that’s what will allow us to create alternatives for the future.”
• Building a living risk culture: The films become freely reusable educational tools for awareness actions. They are contributed to a common pool in service of the collective prevention message, transforming abstract knowledge into living and appropriated culture.

Practical information

Saturday, October 11, 2025:

• 10am-4pm: Creation workshop (free participation, come when you want, stay as long as you wish)
• 4:45pm-6pm: Collective screening of films made
• Location: Maison écocitoyenne Bordeaux Métropole, Quai Richelieu, Bordeaux
• Free and open to all, from age 6
• No prior registration required

You can come alone, with family, with friends. The workshop is designed to accommodate flows of participants throughout the day. Even in 30 minutes, it is possible to create a very short film!

The films produced are available on the AFPCNT YouTube channel.

This project was born from the meeting between Serge Tisseron, psychoanalyst, and Benoît Labourdette, filmmaker, and was made possible by the active coordination of Virginie Perromat and the involvement of all partners.

This initiative is part of the Bordeaux Métropole Resilience Month and the National Resilience Day on October 13. It is carried out by the AFPCNT (French Association for the Prevention of Natural and Technological Disasters) and IHMEC (Institute for the History and Memory of Disasters), in partnership with Bordeaux Métropole and the City of Bordeaux, with the support of the Maison écocitoyenne of Bordeaux and the Ligue de l’Enseignement Fédération Gironde.

Organizers and partners

• IHMEC
• AFPCNT
• Benoît Labourdette production
• Ministry of Ecological Transition, Energy, Climate and Risk Prevention
• Resilience Month (Bordeaux métropole)
• City of Bordeaux
• Ligue de l’Enseignement Fédération Gironde
• Maison écocitoyenne of Bordeaux