The Ecosystem
🔬 REFUGE Lab
The source
Before each film, the Lab conducts field investigations: interviews with locals, collection of oral archives, and discovery of forgotten stories. This living material fuels the film’s script and forms the first dataset for the Atlas of Narratives. The Lab is also the division that defines and documents the Institute’s central research question, in collaboration with researchers in humanities and social sciences.
🎬 REFUGE Studio
Heart of the Flow
The Studio is the production space. It is nomadic, hosted in residency at partner locations in Haute-Savoie and beyond. Here, the material collected by the Lab is transformed into film. Production is collective from start to finish: locals are subjects, co-authors (screenwriters, directors, actors, composers, etc.), and researchers. Each residency is a living laboratory of research-creation, social connection, and skill transmission.
🎭 REFUGE Festival
The Confluence
After filming, the film returns to its territory and audiences in the form of a Film Festival, featuring screenings, debates, film clubs, and encounters between filmmakers, researchers, artists, and the public. It also sets Music for Science, a hybrid initiative where researchers take the stage during concerts to broaden access to science.
🌿 REFUGE Experience
Mouth to the world
The territorial films produced by the Institute do not stay in their region of origin. The Experience division organizes their export: tours at national and international festivals, intercultural exchanges with other regions, and study trips. This division takes local narratives to universal horizons and, in return, brings back practices and perspectives from elsewhere to nourish future projects.