Pour rendre acceptable cette segmentation, l'imaginaire colonial cst mobilise et revitalise afin de parcelliser la suhjectivite des domines. (Bouamama, 75) As Francois Niney has pointed out. Entre les murs (2008) de Laurent Cantet, paradocumentaire joue par les interesses reconstituant la realise' d'une classe de college (11), served to underscore complex ways in which fiction and reality were being documented today and how division between filmic genres had become increasingly complicated by rapid technological innovation. Strictly speaking, '(un) documentaire' se singularise pour ne plus designer qu'un seul type de document, ou de documentation, visuel on audiovisuel: un documentaire est alors un film (ou une video) qui s'oppose a film de fiction, un peu comme l'essai au roman (Niney, 15-16) and La plupart des dictionnaires de la langue francaise comme des voeabulaires du cinema tentent de definir le documentaire par deux traits principalis: son aspect didactique et son opposition a la fiction qui recouvrirait l'opposition entre et imaginaire (Niney, 16). However, indiscriminate recourse to such terms as montrant des faits reels and renvoyant au reel (Niney, 17) to designate events or features of all forms of film has served to further complicate process of categorizing film productions. Given their specific objective of documenting cultural, economic, political, and realities of banlieues, short films by Faiza Guene that are under consideration here compel viewers to reflect simultaneously on subjects explored and effectiveness--and therefore function--of camera itself as a tool. Relying as they do on diverse evidentiary modes, testimonies, and privileged ethnographic informers, au-dela d'etre des oeuvres de creation, de fiction, les films sont des supports de comprehension d'une partie de la vie des adolescents de ma generation et de mon milieu social (Faiza Guene, Personal communication), these films engage in a dialogue between center and periphery. The French banlieues have received considerable attention--on subject of religion and gender roles (Keaton 2006), comparative urban policies (Wacquant 1992 and 2006), ethnicity, race and class (Stovali 2003), mobility (Fassin 2010), police repression (Le Cour Grandmaison 2009)--and we are today better-equipped thanks to these historical and sociological analyses to understand cultural and dynamics in these urban spaces and also to identify reductive characterizations of these. However, as new generations of researchers have gained scholarly legitimacy as a result of extensive field work in banlieues, it remains of crucial importance to determine what can be gained by connecting these findings and observations with films and texts generated internally. Indeed, in his discussion of Beur authors (Azouz Begag, Farida Belgboul, Mehdi Charef, etc), Alec Hargreaves demonstrated how they were the first to write from within immigrant community itself (Immigration and identity, 4, emphasis added). Likewise, Beur cinema would also focus on analogous themes, most notably question of bi-cultural upbringing, Islam in French society, immigrant politics, parameters of Frenchness, legacy of Algerian war, family dynamics, colonial memory, and so on (see Dhoukar). Ultimately, these cultural practitioners provided a perspective on France that was not available elsewhere. The documentary component--albeit mediated via fiction--was integral to genealogy of production, recording an aspect of French society that might not have otherwise been available. The focus on sociological elements complicated reception of literary works within a highly institutionalized literary establishment (Pascale Casanova has devoted a book-length study to this republique mondiale des lettres), and Beur authors were often heavily criticized for this. …