Joyeuse retraite papa

Rayane Mcirdi builds his films from stories, memories and anecdotes gathered from his family, loved ones and the residents of Asnières-sur-Seine and Gennevilliers, where he grew up. Nourished by the narratives that run through his family between Algeria and France, he stages these words with great cinematic precision, turning these ordinary stories into a medium where the intimate and the collective intersect.

Opening: Wednesday 23.09.26, from 6 pm to 9 pm

Curator: Céline Poulin

His films give substance to seldom-told memories and offer – far from conventional representations of the suburbs – narratives marked by solidarity, contradictions, dreams of elsewhere, humour and family ties. What plays out within them is always singular, yet resonates far beyond the individuals filmed.

From one film to the next, Rayane Mcirdi explores what is transmitted between generations, the way an identity is built between multiple heritages, the bonds uniting individuals with those who came before them, a territory and a shared memory, as well as the moments when a life turns upside down and a new horizon opens up.

Conceived specially for Le Plateau, the exhibition version of his new film Le dernier jour de Dino unfolds throughout the entire space in the form of a journey made up of several chapters, extended by scenes that echo one another from room to room.

Inspired by the story of the artist's father, the film draws us into a seemingly ordinary day: the one where a factory worker leaves his job for good after forty years of work. Between the final gestures performed at his workstation, the complicity uniting colleagues, and then the return to his loved ones, this suspended day gradually reveals what it means to leave a world to which one has devoted a whole lifetime.

This transitional moment becomes the starting point for a sensitive narrative where solidarity, tenderness, nostalgia and unsaid things intertwine, ultimately bringing forth, behind this family portrait, a profoundly universal experience.

Beyond the end of a career, Rayane Mcirdi films with delicacy a pivotal moment where generations intersect and everyone tries to find their place in the face of what is coming to an end, as well as what remains to be passed on.

Rayane Mcirdi

Rayane Mcirdi was born in 1993 in Asnières-sur-Seine. He lives and works in Gennevilliers,