Pauline Fonsny

Pauline Fonsny (Belgium, 1987) is a Brussels-based philosopher and filmmaker who also teaches photography. In 2017, she was camerawoman and editor for Julie Jaroszewski’s Qui es-tu Octobre?. The next year, she directed her first film A l'usage des vivants. Most of her work investigates the structural racism of Belgian and European politics, and more specifically on the imprisonment of “foreigners”.

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À l’usage des vivants

Pauline Fonsny, Belgium, 2019, 27’

In 1998, Semira Adamu, a 20-year-old Nigerian immigrant, died on Belgian soil of suffocation under a police pillow. Twenty years later, two women tell her story in a cry for justice. Through this film, they highlight the reality of detention centres: the harsh conditions of confinement, the suffering of detainees and the abuse by guards and police officers.