Kumail Syed — Les enfants ont des oreilles

Two films about / from / in / for two working class neighbourhoods, filmed half a century apart. An ongoing dialogue between inside and outside, informing an aftertalk between filmmaker and film programmer. And you are invited <3

18:30 doors
19:00 screening
20:30 aftertalk
21:30 end
22:00 bar closes

Belgian filmmaker Kumail Syed presents his 2025 film Les enfants ont des oreilles shot in Les Marolles, alongside Zone immigrée by the French Collectif Mohamed, a film shot half a century ago in the outskirts of Paris. Both films, in their own distinct way, try to portray their own working class neighbourhood, to speak from the place itself, and to be at peace with life in it.

Zone immigrée (Collectif Mohamed, 1980, 36min)

Zone immigrée is a rare and uncompromising document of life in the Cité Jean Couzy in Vitry, filmed in 1970 in the aftermath of a young man’s assault by a bus driver. Driven by anger and a desire to speak from within, the Collectif Mohamed turns the camera to their own community, interviewing people in the streets of the cité, intent on challenging the images and narratives imposed from outside. Raw, urgent and deeply political, the film remains a striking act of cinematic self-representation.

Les enfants ont des oreilles (Kumail Syed, 2025, 37min)

By interweaving his memories with those of four other people – Alpha, Bilal, Lila, and his mother – Kumail Syed sketches out contemporary forms of working-class existence in Les Marolles.

After reading Didier Eribon’s Returning to Reims, in which the author returns to the working-class village of his childhood, Kumail Syed realised that his life was shaped through a very different experience of class than those around him. Up until that point the filmmaker had denied his background. When he realised that his rejection was an insult to the reality that his parents had experienced, he decided to revisit the neighbourhood of his childhood.

Les enfants ont des oreilles bears witness to Syed’s class of origin through the form of a filmed diary. It shows what the working class can represent today through tableaux vivants from the neighbourhood, as well as through the testimonies of the director and his mother, and the people he encountered during his return to Les Marolles.

about

Collectif Mohamed - Between 1977 and 1981, young residents of the housing estates of Alfortville and Vitry-sur-Seine came together to form the Mohamed Collective. Pooling their money, they bought a few Super 8 reels and made three short films with the support of a teacher from their high school. The project grew out of their desire to create their own images, tell their stories in their own words, investigate the housing estates where they lived, have fun, but also to develop a political voice and give shape to their revolt.

Kumail Syed (1998, Brussels) studied music before pursuing audiovisual arts at KASK School of Arts, where he graduated in 2025 with the mid-length film Les enfants ont des oreilles. Since October of that year, he has been a guest researcher at KASK.