François Willig

The Despair of the Monkeys

The first films of Patagonia - where I grew up - show a territory that no longer exists, as the araucarias, millenary trees from the Patagonian forests, were in part replaced by more productive pines. Near my new home, in Belgium, I find araucarias that adorn front gardens. We hear some girls playing in the car, pointing out araucarias on the road. How did these plants become a petty-bourgeois fashion in northern Europe? I confront these archives with contemporary technoscientific images, used by a lab to explore plant modifications. What can these modes of representation tell us about our time?

Stalin and the Katyn Massacre

The Katyn massacre, carried out by the Soviet NKVD in 1940, was only one of many unspeakable crimes committed by Stalin's ruthless executioners over three decades. The mass murder of thousands of Polish officers was part of a relentless purge, the secrets and details of which have only recently been partially revealed.

The Last Days of the USSR

From 1989 to 1991 a string of unpredictable events happened that brought to light the rivalry between two men: Gorbachev, hindered by the economic results of his perestroika, and Yeltsin, embodying the hopes of the Russian people. Illustrated with interviews of top protagonists such as Mikhail Gobachev himself, the documentary recounts the critical last two years of the former USSR.

Stalin's Last Plot

January 1953: On the eve of his death Stalin finds himself yet another imaginary enemy: Jewish doctors. He organizes the most violent anti-Semitic campaign ever launched in the USSR, by fabricating the "Doctors' Plot," whereby doctors are charged with conspiring to murder the highest dignitaries of the Soviet Regime. Still unknown and untold, this conspiracy underlines the climax of a political scheme successfully masterminded by Stalin to turn the Jews into the new enemies of the people. It reveals his extreme paranoia and his compulsion to manipulate those around him. The children and friends of the main victims recount for the first time their experience and their distress related to these nightmarish events.