War on Screen Film Festival 2025

An evening where eight teams of teenagers transformed the streets into giant screens to share their concerns about the state of the planet, armed with just a portable projector and their conviction.

A tradition that reinvents itself each year

The traveling projection of the War on Screen festival has established itself as an eagerly awaited event in Châlons-en-Champagne. For five years now, I have been accompanying the eleventh and twelfth-grade students from the cinema option at Pierre Bayen high school in this unique adventure: transforming their city’s walls into projection surfaces for a nighttime walk lasting over an hour. I have been using this approach for about fifteen years for what I call “democratic cinema.”

This year, at the suggestion of their teacher Laurent Gauthier, the teenagers chose to tackle the theme of ecology. Not ecology as an abstract concept, but the one that touches them, that worries them: “this war for the earth, for life, this sensitivity, this commitment that can be theirs.” A choice that broke with previous editions, where projections were mainly organized around excerpts from war films that they introduced theatrically.

The technical setup is remarkably simple: a handheld pico-projector, a portable speaker system, wireless microphones. But behind this apparent simplicity lies meticulous preparation, rehearsals, and scriptwriting work for the entire projection, from the introduction of the first film to the conclusion of the last, including the smooth transitions between different projections.

The difficult transition from objectivity to personal engagement

Initially, the eight teams mixing twelfth and eleventh-grade students had prepared montages on themes close to their hearts: endangered turtles, animal violence, eco-friendly cities, poaching in Africa, etc. But something was missing. Their sources were mainly from television, their discourse attempted to be objective, informative. What was missing was their perspective, their sensitivity, the reasons for their commitment. They had also not grasped the live performance dimension of this proposal.

The turning point came during a work session followed by a rehearsal. That evening, pouring rain forced us to rehearse inside the bar of the national theater La Comète. What could have been a setback turned out to be a great opportunity for the project. We were able to focus on the essentials: how to address the audience, the articulation of their words with their projections, the overall logic. I was able to suggest that the students reposition themselves, say “I,” remove all or part of the soundtrack from the short films they had made to make room for their oral intervention before, during, and after the film.

This was a difficult moment for them. They understood that they had to commit personally, share their own points of view. One student explained during the projection: “We are going to present eight projects that reflect our concern about the state of the planet and the urgency of action. We are all concerned by what we are about to see.”

The emergence of powerful teenage voices

The students worked well beyond their class hours. During the dress rehearsal in real street conditions, I discovered that they had all taken a huge step forward. Their proposal had become so powerful it impressed me. They were now sharing their teenage perspectives on these subjects, in depth and detail.

On the evening of the projection, about 150 spectators followed us through the streets. A record for this traveling projection. The students managed everything: the technical equipment, the transitions, but also guiding the audience from one place to another. One of them directed: “We invite you to follow us to rue d’Orfeuil”, while another reassured: “It’s not very far.”

The high school students’ interventions testified to their ownership of the subject. One of them directly addressed the audience: “And you, how do you see the world in the coming years? I think that if we don’t act, the planet will deteriorate more and more and we risk experiencing major climate changes like severe droughts or major floods.” Another continued: “That’s why we need to stop acting as if the planet belongs to us and ignoring all the dangers it faces.”

The turtles, or the reinvention of silent cinema

One of the moments that impressed me most was this montage created by three young girls about sea turtles. At first, this subject seemed “very unlikely” to me. I didn’t understand why they wanted to talk to us about turtles. But one of them had been to Martinique, had discovered an association, and shared with us “the reason why she now felt concerned about this subject.”

Their approach was actually very bold. The film was completely silent, with subtitles allowing us to follow the subject. In this silence, one of them intervened from time to time, deliberately leaving long silences between her words, short and striking words, in the deafening silence. This risk-taking captivated the audience from the beginning. The audience, somewhat disconcerted at first, fixed their attention on these silent images, waiting for the next word, with a quality of attention I have rarely felt to this extent.

“It’s as if, without knowing it, they were reinventing silent cinema in light of sound cinema”, I thought. They mixed these two moments in cinema history to create something that wouldn’t have worked if the voice had been recorded in the film. It was because she was there, present, embodied next to the screen, that we felt it was her, her living presence, that was weaving the connection to the subject for us. During their intervention, they explained: “These turtles are alive, and they face more and more threats, such as ocean waste, fishing nets, but also pesticides.”

A conclusion that engages the future

The projection ended with a direct and rather poignant appeal to the audience. A student declared: “And if one day your grandchildren or children asked you: Why have the flowers disappeared? Why don’t the fish swim anymore? Why don’t the rivers flow anymore? What will you have to say then?” Before continuing: “Don’t think you’ve just witnessed a simple show, it’s above all a call. A call to imagine a world where rivers flow again, where storms become increasingly rare and where heat waves will have almost completely disappeared.”

The final intervention resonated like a generational manifesto: “This world, we know, seems inaccessible to you, but believe us, it’s within our reach. But it won’t build itself, it needs us, it needs you. [...] Let’s act for the trees, let’s act for the oceans, let’s act for the earth, but above all let’s act for our future generations.”

The concentration, the respect, everything the spectators learned, received from these young people... I felt this moment as a great moment of shared collective intensity. This approach proved to be democratic in both form and substance. The students were able to transform their concern into a force of proposition, their commitment into live performance, their convictions into a moment of sharing with their community.