Cyril Marcilhacy

The Village

Brann du Senon, former homeless, former biker, ex-con and eternal rebel, decided to change his life two years ago. After an eventful existence and several heart-attacks, he became a housing rights activist, bought a field in Fontainebleau forrest, 80 kilometers away from Paris, some old caravans he accommodated, and organized a community to host homeless people. Since then, men – and some women – thrown into the streets, come relax in this improvised village. The aim is to provide them with shelter and food to enable them to consider more serenely reintegration.

In order to communicate about his initiative, Brann owns a website and a Facebook page giving contact information to homeless so that they can reach the village. But the website is as well a platform putting into direct relation homeless people with individuals ready to help with a shower, a meal, a job or a temporary bed.

Independent of any structure, the community has its rules. No addiction, and everyone has to give a hand : feed the animals (pigs, chickens…), maintain the garden, fetch water in the the neighboring wells, general repairs, retrieve of daily unsold goods given by supermarkets nearby…

Every week, the members of the community cook a big soup and go to Paris or elsewhere to share it with people living in difficult conditions, talking about housing rights.

Life conditions are not that easy (no shower, no tap water, electricity 8 hours a day), and community life does not fit everyone. Turnover is high; sometimes the village has only 3 or 4 people living in it, sometimes 15.

I’ve been documenting the daily life of this community since August 2013, spending one week per month in the village. Even if this community is not changing the lives of the tens of thousands homeless in France, it shows that locally, with little means, some things can be done.

 

 

Bio

Cyril Marcilhacy was born in Roubaix, France, in 1981.
After studying Finance and spending two years in an audit firm, he traveled for a year and a half along the Panamerican highway, from Seattle to Ushuaia. It is then that he was sure of his passion for reportage and decided to switch to photojournalism. From 2009 to 2010 Marcilhacy joined a photojournalism training at EMI-CFD in Paris and then started working as a freelance photographer. Since then he has made two web-documentaries on various classes of age for Lemonde.fr of which excerpts were screened during the festival “Photographic Night” in Paris in 2012. Cyril first worked on social issues in France, then focused on the Voodoo in Benin, the plight of the civilian populations in the Colombian conflict, and the consequences of the Libyan revolution a year after the fall of the regime. He regularly works for newspapers and magazines such Le Monde, VSD, Le Parisien Magazine, Neon, Geo Voyages, l’Obs.
Marcilhacy joined Cosmos photo agency in 2012.
He currently lives in Paris.

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Cyril Marcilhacy

4 thoughts on “Cyril Marcilhacy – The Village”

  1. great story….terrific pics…

    just this; STEP BACK for a bit…

    this story cries out some distance too…visually especially….that coupled with the intensity of the close frame you employ…:)….

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