随时候命（2016）

La Permanence, Alice Diop’s first full-length feature, immerses itself in the daily life of an emergency medical facility in Seine-Saint-Denis dedicated to caring for migrant persons. The filmmaker documents the daily appointments of one of the facility’s general practitioners. As empathetic as he is unflappable, he examines patients who all bear the scars of exile. In this secluded environment, Alice Diop maintains a modest and respectful distance, placing the patients and their stories at the heart of the narrative. As they come and go, they begin to open up: about their health concerns, naturally, but also about their hopes and fears, not to mention the administrative hell into which they have been thrust. Captured inside this shabby consulting room, their accounts of day-to-day life create a microcosm that lays bare a woefully under-resourced and decaying French health sector. La Permanence reveals the powerlessness of a medical profession faced with the pain caused by exile, as well as the symbolic and physical violence at the heart of the asylum process.