14/03/2022 - A fascinating first feature film by Audrey Ginestet, which very skilfully revisits the case and the legal battle of the so-called "Tarnac terrorists" from a human perspective

"You transform each of our friendships into a suspicious contact and you fantasise a whole constellation of international criminals on the basis of the lives you have been spying on and tracking for more than ten years.” On 11 November 2008, all the front pages of French media were hit with the case of Tarnac, a small village in the Corrèze region of France where Operation Taïga (150 gendarmes and police officers, two helicopters and numerous cameras) orchestrated the arrest of nine individuals presented as members of the anarcho-autonomous ultra-left and indicted for terrorist association, suspected of sabotaging TGV lines, and possibly much more ("it is not excluded that this group had contemplated more violent actions, notably against people"). Among those arrested was Manon, the sister of the companion of the director and musician Audrey Ginestet, who decided to dedicate her captivating and very edifying first feature film, Drop it, to this affair, which had its world premiere at the 44th Cinéma du réel Festival.

It was on the eve of the judicial epilogue looming in March 2018 that the filmmaker chose to position herself, going to Tarnac and the Goutailloux farm where the first police surveillance reports, ten years earlier, noted "the presence of about twenty individuals from different European countries living in a communal form, whose activities and comings and goings indicated a real desire to act clandestinely," in parallel with the collective management of a grocery shop, a bar, a canteen, a library, courses and help for asylum seekers, all interspersed with participation in several "anti-globalisation" gatherings. There, Manon, Yldune and Benjamin, supported by friends, are now preparing for the final trial (the terrorism charge was dropped a year prior and a partial dismissal of the case has already been pronounced, leaving charges of criminal association and minor offences), polishing up statements and rehearsing the interrogations to come. A mock courtroom on which the film relies to unravel the whole affair from its beginnings, from the television news archives ("in a few days the groundwork is laid for a story that will persist for ten years'') to the memories of all the stages (interrogations - "beyond the facts of the case, it was the political ideas that were being attributed to the accused that were being attacked" -, refusal to take DNA samples, solidarity crumbling over time and fear in the face of the justice system, broken friendships, couples and families, hundreds of people in the entourage bugged for years, etc.).

With Drop it, Audrey Ginestet records an intimate (in the padded winter setting of the surrounding countryside) and precise (a final sequence brings together the protagonists one year after the trial) trace of this ordeal of endurance and of a constellation of committed individuals (essentially women on the screen) who, despite everything, have preserved their faith in their vision of the world. The engrossing film weaves together a common memory of a journey not without pain, but ending in a victory attested to by the final judgement: "the hearing made it possible to understand that the Tarnac group was a fiction."

Drop it was produced by Deuxième Ligne Films who are also handling the international sales.

(Translated from French)