As Paris mutated in the 1980s, Marsu, a young guy from Picardy, found himself at the heart of the alt-rock and punk movement. From the squats to the music, everything was political. The squats were still tinged with the operating methods of the armed struggle. As for music, Marsu saw it as a vehicle of education for the people, an overall attitude that offered a different way of life and relationship with the world at a time when youth was being stifled. That’s why the alternative scene took off, without the support of cultural institutions or the media. Its time had come. The place was Paris. Likewise, for Marsu, this was the time and place.

From “La bande du Luxembourg” to Lucrate Milk, from squats in eastern Paris to the unlikely success of Bérurier Noir way off the beaten publicity and production trails, from Bondage Records to Crash Disques, Marsu has been a protagonist and witness of the complete transformation of the French music scenes and their audiences, from the 1980s to the present day. And more specifically of the activist movements in which art can never and must never  be separated from politics. Whether directly involved or revolving around it, innumerable artists still active today, from painters to videomakers, and musical styles, such as hip-hop and electro, laid down their roots in that period. And Marsu is their archeologist: Indiana Jones in the land of the Clockwork Orange, on an endless quest for the lost ark of a radically anti-fascist counter-culture. The soundtrack slays it.

Guillaume Podrovnik has directed for ARTE: Pif, l’envers du gadget, Lucky Luke, la fabrique du Western européen, René Goscinny, notre oncle d’Armorique and « On verra demain : excursion en Procrasti-Nation ».