Film - The Genealogy of Violence, Mohamed Bourouissa

Genealogy of Violence is a multimedia project comprising a film and a series of aluminium sculptures, both concerned with police violence as a systemic phenomenon — one embodied not only in physical force, but also through behaviour, language, bureaucratic mechanisms, and existing legal frameworks.

This experimental short film opens on a scene familiar to many people of colour: a young man is stopped by the police for an identity check while sitting in a car with his girlfriend. What first appears to be an innocuous interaction quickly tips into a situation of humiliation, violation, and alienation. Through this opening sequence, Mohamed Bourouissa sets the stage for a reflection on the structural violence that conditions the existence of marginalised communities in the West, exposing the latent brutality of standardised control procedures supposedly grounded solely in the principles of justice and equality. Bourouissa weaves the narrative in an equivocal language, rich with contrasts. The film shifts continually between scenes captured live and computer-generated sequences that spread across the surface of the screen like a virus — the setting itself borrows from the aesthetics of science-fiction cinema, somewhere between the perpetual night of Alex Proyas's Dark City and Mega-City One, the megalopolis of Dredd, where the law is enforced by police officers called "judges" — visually interpreting the protagonist's psychic dissociation throughout the search. Reality collapses under the psychological pressure; subjectivity then becomes the only space of resistance. In this in-between, surreal territory, the mind seeks to flee the oppression of the present by fabricating alternative realities, ones in which the body escapes the indignities of contact and manipulation.

Original scenario: Mohamed Bourouissa, Jean-René Étienne, Abdoulaziz Touré.
With the participation of David Pickering.
Director of Photography: Paul Guilhaume
Image editing: Rafael Torres-Calderon
Sound engineer: Alix Clément
Sound editing: Capitaine Plouf
Mix: Sébastien Cannas, Maxime Vanderbeck
Original soundtrack: Lyla
Decor: Benoist Buttin
Costumes: Marion Brillouet
Post-production coordination: Cécilia Déchaud
Production Director: Fabrice Godin
Casting: Judith Chalier

Mohamed Bourouissa

Born in 1978 in Blida, Algeria, Mohamed Bourouissa lives and works in Paris. Preceded by a long immersion phase, each of Mohamed Bourouissa’s projects builds a new enunciation situation. With a critical take on mass media images, his artworks reintroduce complexity in contemporary society's representations. The subjects of his photographs, sculptures and videos are often people "left behind", at the crossroads of integration and exclusion. His work has been exhibited in numerous solo exhibitions, at the MARTa Herford, Herford, Germany (2025); Fondazione MAST, Bologna, Italy (2025); Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2024); LaM - Lille Métropole Musée d'art moderne, d'art contemporain et d'art brut, Lille, France (2023); Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art, London, UK (2021); Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Denmark (2021); ar/ge kunst, Bolzano, Italy (2020); Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin, Germany (2020); Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles, France (2019); Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France (2018); Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2018); Musée National Eugène Delacroix, Paris, France (2017); Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, PA (2017); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2016); Savannah College of Arts and Design, Atlanta, GA (2011); Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA (2011), among others.

His work is represented in notable public collections worldwide including the MoMA - Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, Finland; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, France; Fonds National d’art contemporain, Paris, France; FRAC Bretagne, Rennes, France; FRAC Franche-Comté, Besançon, France; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA; Pinault Collection, Paris, France; Sammlung Philara, Düsseldorf, Germany; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands; among others.

Bourouissa’s work has been commended with numerous prizes including the Clermont-Ferrand international short film festival (2025); Kurzfilmtage festival (2025); Photobook Prize Paris Photo - Aperture Foundation for the book Périphérique with Loose Joints Editions (2022); Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize (2020); Prix Fondation Blachère (2010); Prix Studio Collector, Fondation Antoine de Galbert (2007); and First Prize, Les Rencontres d’Arles (2007). He was also nominated for the Mario Merz Prize (2024), the Prix Marcel Duchamp (2018), selected for the Prix Pictet, international photography award (2017).