Join us at the Archives Départementales de la Manche on March 11 for the Altaïr conference "Route de la soie, sur les traces de Marco Polo"- A film by Patrick Mathé.
Patrick Mathé is now based in Lijiang, China. He discovered this town in northern Yunnan some twenty years ago, while making a feature film on the Yangtze River. His first reports took him to South America and Alaska.
In 2005, he took part in an expedition that successfully descended the Mekong. His two previous reports took us on the Tea Route, in China's Yunnan province, and At the foot of Tibet.
He now returns with his latest project, entitled The Silk Road.
Film summary:
The Chinese section of the Silk Road began in Chang?an and then, through a string of oases and strongholds, reached the Jade Gate which, for the Chinese, marked the end of the civilized world. It owes its name to the most precious of the goods transiting this trade route: silk.
Following in Marco Polo's footsteps, discover the Silk Road's enchantingly-named oases. Who hasn't dreamed of wandering through the great bazaar of Kashgar, where Uighurs, Kirghiz, Tajiks and Kazakhs meet? Who hasn?t dreamed of contemplating its imposing earthen walls, which for centuries housed Central Asia?s greatest treasures? Ella Maillart and Peter Fleming rediscovered the scents of civilization after their arduous journey.
More than 2,000 years ago, the Steppe Empire belonged to a multitude of Turkic tribes, who regularly clashed and sometimes reunited. The Xiongnu (sometimes considered the ancestors of the Huns) were the first of these Turkic tribes to reign terror over Eastern Turkestan. In the 2nd century BC, to repel them, a Chinese emissary was sent to the west of the Taklamakan desert and beyond the Pamir range to seal an alliance with a distant tribe, hereditary enemy of the Turks. Historically, this journey was at the origin of the Silk Road, the story of which is recounted in this film.
Conférence Altaïr > "Route de la soie, sur les traces de Marco Polo"
SAINT-LO
Event's calendar
