Did you know that France is the only country where property is considered a “sacred” right, in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789? That forms of non-market property (family, village, religious, etc.) existed in Mesopotamia 3,500 years BC? That legal personality has been granted to 14 rivers in Colombia?
Filmed on a black background, researchers from around the world decipher in this documentary series in four episodes the notion of property, as it has become rooted in the culture of their country, and applied to the body, to the intelligence or nature.
Re-examining in order to deconstruct, even reconstruct, what guides our contemporary societies has become the hallmark of the writer and director Gérard Mordillat. After becoming interested in religion with Jérôme Prieur (Body of Christ, The Origin of Christianity, jesus and islam…), he undertook a stimulating reflection on the fundamental principles of economics with the economist Bertrand Rothé.
Another property: the commons
After a first series devoted to “work, wages and profit” in 2019, he set out with the lawyer Christophe Clerc to decipher the notion of property in all its aspects.
“Property appeared to us as the best tool for understanding the world in which we live. It affects all aspects of life, whether it is the ownership of your body, your intelligence, patents, land. Everywhere you turn, you come across property,” emphasizes Gérard Mordillat.
“We live under the reign of market property, which is a recent invention, continues Christophe Clerc. What remains to be invented is ecological property, which would prohibit the destruction of a mountain or a river. » A fascinating and didactic reflection, as demanding in terms of content and form, which feeds the debate on the “commons”.