Paris Périph

No man's land, to be avoided? Not so sure.... As the city expands, the ring road becomes an urban planning issue. Turning nuisance into energy is a major challenge for architects. Richard Copans, on the other hand, turns it into emotion... Designed in 1937 and inaugurated in 1973, the Paris ring road is a 40-kilometre loop that carries more than a million cars every day in an uninterrupted flow. Designed to lighten traffic as much as to channel it, it was built on the thin 150-metre strip that separated the boulevards des Maréchaux from the suburbs, the old granting wall. This boulevard, which goes round in circles and generates great nuisances, is entirely dedicated to the automobile. It is hard to imagine that this space from which pedestrians are banned could have any kind of appeal! And yet.... Richard Copans films places that line the outskirts - bridges, footbridges and undergrounds -, looks at how the city has adapted to this river of cars, how people live on these shores...