À la ligne

On the Line: Notes from a Fish Factory

Unable to find work in his field, Joseph Ponthus enlists with a temp agency and starts to pick up casual shifts in the fish processing plants and abattoirs of Brittany. Day after day he records with infinite precision the nature of work on the production line: the noise, the weariness, the dreams stolen by the repetitive nature of exhausting rituals and physical suffering. But he finds solace in a life previously lived. Shelling prawns, he dreams of Alexandre Dumas. Pushing cattle carcasses, he recalls Apollinaire. And, in the grace of the blank spaces created by his insistent return to a new line of text – mirroring his continued return to the production line – we discover the woman he loves, the happiness of a Sunday, Pok Pok the dog, the smell of the sea.

In this celebrated French bestseller, Ponthus captures the mundane, the beautiful and the strange, writing with an elegance and humour that sit in poignant contrast with the blood and sweat of the factory floor. On the Line  is a poet's ode to manual labour, and to the human spirit that makes it bearable.

Produced by Benoit Danou and Alexandre Repelski

in development

Written by Mathias Pardo & Peter Dourountzis

Directed by Mathias Pardo.

—> CNC aide au développement Mai 2021

—> Région Bretagne, aide à l’écriture Avril 2021