Pacific Club
dir. Valentin Noujaïm
short film, documentary, hybrid
France, Qatar / 16 minutes / 2023
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Written and directed by Valentin Noujaïm
Production : Iliade et films - Manon Messiant
Cinematography : Pauline Domejean
Sound : Lucas Domejean
Editing : Dinah Ekchajzer
Music : Space Afrika
VFX : Nicolas Pirus
Sound editing : Ary Carpman
Mixing engineer : Maxime Roy
Featuring : Azedine Benabdelmouene / Taos Bertrand / Julien Mezence
Selected press
Artforum: Valentin Noujaïm's requiem for a razed nightclub
Art Basel: Discover Valentin Noujaïm's experimental films
Filmmaker's bio
Valentin Noujaïm (born in 1991, Franco-Lebanese) graduated from the Screenwriting Department of La Fémis in Paris and was a guest student at the Städelschule in Frankfurt, Germany. Noujaïm's work focuses on three axes: improvised lives, compressed lives, and extinguished lives. He creates marginal and strange characters in fantasized universes while relying on format research, blending 16mm film, archives, digital, and special effects.
His films have been selected for festivals such as CPH:DOX, Visions du Réel, International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), DocLisboa, BAFICI, DokuFest, BlackStar Film Festival, and Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur. Additionally, his work has been featured in several group exhibitions: Triennale de Nîmes (2024), Museo Madre (2024), Magasins Généraux (2023), CNAC Magasin (2022), Salon de Montrouge (2022), Galerie Air de Paris (2022), Galerie Exo Exo (2022), Saatchi Gallery (2021), among others. His works are found in the collections of CNAP, FRAC Bretagne, and Lafayette Anticipations. Valentin Noujaïm will have his first institutional solo show in 2025 and is currently working on his first feature.
Synopsis
In 1979, the Pacific Club was opened in the basement of La Défense - the business district of Paris. It was the first nightclub for Arabs from the suburbs; a parallel world of dance, sweat, young loves, and one-night utopias. Azedine, 17 years old at the time, tells us the forgotten story of this club and of this generation who dreamed of integrating into France but who soon came face to face with racism, the AIDS epidemic, and heroin.
Festivals & screenings
World premiere : CPH:DOX - New:Visions Competition, Denmark
Champs-Élysées Film Festival - French Competition, France
Lichter Film Festival, Germany
Kurzfilmfest Hamburg - International Competition, Germany
Videoex - International Competition, Switzerland
Black Star Film Festival - Competition, US
Dokufest - Competition, Kosovo
Silhouette Festival - Competition, France
Metrograph - Shasha Movies presents: Valentin Noujaïm, US
Film Festival Heceg Novi, Montenegro - Competition, Montenegro
Festival International de Lille, France
Villa Medici Film Festival - Competition, Italy
Bucharest Int. Experimental Film Festival - Competition, Romania
Curtas Vila do Conde, Portugal
Encounters Film Festival - Competition, UK
BFI London Film Festival - Experimenta, UK
CineAstra - 'second sights and infrared sprites', UK
XPOSED Queer Film Festival Berlin, Germany
Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur - Competition, Switzerland
Kasseler Dokfest - Competition, Germany
PAF - Festival of Film Animation and Contemporary Art, Czech Republic
Batalha Cinema - 'After Hours: Clubbing & Cinema', Portugal
MENA Festival, Canada
Hyphae, US
Trauma Bar/ Synergie - 'Echoes of Synchronicity', Germany
SeeYou Sound Int. Music Film Festival, Italy
Sinema Transtopia - 'Sonic Agency', Germany
Centre Pompidou - in conversation with Alice Diop, France
Glasgow Short Film Festival, UK
REGARD – Saguenay International Short Film Festival, Canada
Uppsala Film Festival, Sweden
DOXS Ruhr, Germany
FAME Shorts Film Festival, South Africa
Lucca Film Festival, Italy
Flatline City Film Festival Tokyo, Japan
TATE Britain - 'History Reverberates' screening programme, UK
Vienna Shorts - 'Radical Intimacy' programme, Austria
BARQ Int. Architecture Film Festival Barcelona, Spain
Reykjavík IFF - 'Radical Intimacy' programme, Iceland
Awards
Best Short Dox - Dokufest
Prix George for Best Documentary Form - Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur
Jury Special Mention - CPH:DOX
Jury Special Mention - Lichter FF
Jury Special Mention - Videoex
Nominated for the César Awards (FR) 2024
Exhibitions
Lafayette Anticipations, Paris, FR
KANAL-Centre Pompidou, BE - 'Night Shift' curated by Crystallmess
Kunsthalle Basel, CH - 'Pantheon' - solo show, 2025
VoD
The Criterion Channel - 'Radical Dreams, Underground Sounds: 13 films presented by DWELLER'
available in US & Canada from Feb. 2024