The painful and often tragic stories of refugees seeking to make their way to places of safety make for familiar documentary viewing, but Juliette de Marcillac’s striking Nightwatchers (Veilleurs de nuit) dwells more unusually on a snowy Alpine border where many migrants make a perilous night-time trek through the cold and snow to try and cross from Italy into France.
Often they are scooped up by local police and delivered back into Italy, but aiming to give assistance to the migrants are groups of nghtwatchers, a series of French volunteers who make their own night-time journeys into the mountain tops and valleys to help migrants across, guiding them to a place of refuge.
For her debut film, Marcillac follows the work of the volunteers and rescuers as they plan their missions; interact with police and medics; work out where best to wait in the snowy forests behind the ski slopes of Montgenèvre close to the Italian border, and discuss why they choose to volunteer and what experiences they have had up in the mountains.
Unsurprisingly, what gives the film a visceral sense of atmosphere is the stark fact that by day these beautiful slopes are packed with young and enthusiastic skiers who are blissfully unaware that the stunning vistas are watched over by men in camouflage uniforms. As night comes and the elegant towns are lit by welcoming lights out on the mountain trails, the police wait, both for groups walking on foot through the snow and for the volunteers who try and assist them.
An often uneasy peace exists between police and volunteers. The determined volunteers know to have their IDs with them to placate the constabulary, and while some encounters are perfunctory and relatively polite, some volunteers recount more challenging moments, both with police and more unpleasant security men.
Although the law clearly allows refugees to apply for asylum as soon as they arrive in the country, in brutal reality many are sent back to Italy by the authorities without ever having had the opportunity to apply. This means that in an attempt to try and find a way into France they have started to follow paths higher and higher into the mountains, often putting their lives at risk.
Early footage shows a pregnant woman being assisted by police – and watched over by volunteers wearing white Medecins du Monde vests, but with the implication that she is put into an ambulance and possibly returned to Italy. Marcillac joins the volunteers both in their cars and up on the slopes as they seek to try and assist. They chat about past experiences and question each other why they volunteer, but all are united by a compassion for the migrants.
The cat-and-mouse nature of attempting to evade police patrols and seek out migrants in the snowy darkness makes for intriguing and provocative viewing – especially one scene shot from a distance as migrants try to slide down a slope close to a waiting car that is eventually apprehended by police. Often, though, the film is padded out with beautiful shots of elegant villages and striking mountain vistas when more of the hard-hitting footage would be more evocative.
Towards the end there is a moving and memorable audio sequence as migrants tell their stories, reflecting how the battle with snowy trails is similar to taking dangerous boat trips or heading across deserts. “We try our chance with nature,” one says as they explain why they seek safety across borders.
France, 2023, 69mins
Dir: Juliette de Marcillac
Production/sales: Dryades Films
Producers: Claire Babany, Eleonore Boissinot, Arno Moria
Cinematography: Florian Berthellot
Editor: Marie Molino
Music: Oiseaux-Tempete
