8 November 2020. It is 2.07 a.m. on Saturday night. There is no one in front of La Salamandre, the mythical club for student parties in Strasbourg. The sound of the bass and the rhythmic conversations that usually emanate from the queue have been replaced by a long silence.
Blackout Saturday is a documentary project of staged portraits of nightclub owners and night workers during the Covid-19 pandemic period which caused the total shutdown of this sector of activity in France.

265th night of closure. Along a road through the foggy woods of the Alsatian countryside, no more cars stop at the Manhattan parking lot. This discotheque was opened by the Stoeffel family in 1982. Haguenau, France, 4 December 2020.Blackout Saturday is a documentary project of staged portraits of nightclub owners and night workers during the Covid-19 pandemic period which caused the total shutdown of this sector of activity in France.

265th night of closure. Herve, who runs The Manhattan Club, talks about a family and multigenerational club: "Many of the older members met their wives in this nightclub.“ Love at first sight on the dancefloor and the first kisses under the disco ball will have to wait a little longer, as Herve is not counting on reopening his establishment before 2022. Haguenau, France, 4 December 2020.Blackout Saturday is a documentary project of staged portraits of nightclub owners and night workers during the Covid-19 pandemic period which caused the total shutdown of this sector of activity in France.

The Phonographe is a popular bar in Strasbourg. Due to the administrative closure of bars and the curfew, its front is surprisingly deserted. Strasbourg, France, November 19, 2020.Blackout Saturday is a documentary project of staged portraits of nightclub owners and night workers during the Covid-19 pandemic period which caused the total shutdown of this sector of activity in France.

Jean-Luc Matern was able to welcome customers between the two lockdowns because his nightclub was authorised to open as a bar. For 4 weeks, he enforced strict sanitary rules: access by reservation only, hydroalcoholic gel at the entrance, compulsory masks, a list of customer contact details, spaces marked on the floor for each seated group, plexiglass at the bar... At the end of this experiment, none of his employees tested positive for the coronavirus.La Salamandre Club, Strasbourg, November 8, 2020.
Blackout Saturday is a documentary project of staged portraits of nightclub owners and night workers during the Covid-19 pandemic period which caused the total shutdown of this sector of activity in France.

311th night of closure. Christophe Schaendel, DJ and owner of the Acropole in Surbourg, released the song Resistance: sans discothèque... pas de fete! (Resistance: no disco... no party!) on social networks to express the anger and distress of club owners: "I'm not the kind of person who goes up to Paris to break windows. I use the weapon I have at my disposal: the music". The difficulties he encounters are not only economic. They are also psychological. Christophe does not hide the fact that he has consulted a psychologist several times since the outbreak of the pandemic.Surbourg, France, 18 December 2020. 
Blackout Saturday is a documentary project of staged portraits of nightclub owners and night workers during the Covid-19 pandemic period which caused the total shutdown of this sector of activity in France.

265th closing night. The Manhattan Club's disco balls. Haguenau, France, December 4, 2020.Blackout Saturday is a documentary project of staged portraits of nightclub owners and night workers during the Covid-19 pandemic period which caused the total shutdown of this sector of activity in France.

245th night of closure. Furniture is piled up in a room because the owner of the Next, a nightclub in Strasbourg, is taking advantage of the forced closure of nightclubs to do some renovation work. Strasbourg, France, November 15, 2020.Blackout Saturday is a documentary project of staged portraits of nightclub owners and night workers during the Covid-19 pandemic period which caused the total shutdown of this sector of activity in France.

329th night of closure. In his room, Enzo, dressed in his fireman's outfit, reads Nietzsche. He talks about himself as having an atypical CV. With several master’s degrees in law and philosophy, he taught as a lecturer at the Faculty of Law in Strasbourg during the week and worked at weekends as a go-go dancer, Chippendale and stripper in nightclubs. He gives his opinion on the closure of these party spots: "I understand that health protocols had to be introduced, but I don't understand that we could have killed sectors that were fun sectors. Today, with most of the population down in the dumps, dancing could have been useful for people. " Alsace, France, February 6, 2021.Blackout Saturday is a documentary project of staged portraits of nightclub owners and night workers during the Covid-19 pandemic period which caused the total shutdown of this sector of activity in France.

311th night of closure. The records of Christophe Schaendel, DJ and owner of the Acropole, are stored in a corner of his nightclub. Surbourg, France, 18 December 2020. 
Blackout Saturday is a documentary project of staged portraits of nightclub owners and night workers during the Covid-19 pandemic period which caused the total shutdown of this sector of activity in France.

252nd night of closure. Amadeo Savio, a DJ and electronic music composer, spends his Saturday nights on his computer in his room. He explains: "People go out to clubs but don't realise that there is a whole economy behind it, a real industry that goes from the barman to the club manager, to the graphic designer who makes the flyer for the event, to the artist booker, to the distributor who presses the vinyl. There are many sectors affected by the closure of clubs. On TV, we talk a lot about museums and cinema, but that's not all culture is about." Strasbourg, France, November 22, 2020.Blackout Saturday is a documentary project of staged portraits of nightclub owners and night workers during the Covid-19 pandemic period which caused the total shutdown of this sector of activity in France.

322nd night of closure. Redhana is a full-time go-go dancer and stripper. From her living room, she starts a live show for her social network followers. Instagram and MYM (Meet Your Model—a paid-for platform that connects celebrities with their fans) allow her to pay a few bills and are the only remaining solutions she has to express her art in front of an audience: "If there is no more Insta and no more MYM, there is no more Redhana." Alsace, France, January 30, 2021.Blackout Saturday is a documentary project of staged portraits of nightclub owners and night workers during the Covid-19 pandemic period which caused the total shutdown of this sector of activity in France.

337th closing night. Cecile and Mayllis spend a small evening in Mayllis' flat. Cecile is a bartender in bars during the week and in clubs at the weekend. "It's really depressing not to be able to go to clubs to meet people, share sounds, dance, let off steam... I was brought up in a Catholic family, for me it's my mass in fact. Every Saturday, it's a ritual," confides Mayllis, 26 years old, DJ and waitress in various clubs, bars and concert halls in Strasbourg. Strasbourg, France, February 14, 2021. Blackout Saturday is a documentary project of staged portraits of nightclub owners and night workers during the Covid-19 pandemic period which caused the total shutdown of this sector of activity in France.

265th closing night. At midnight on Saturday. The Manhattan Club lounge area is deserted. A message is displayed on a luminous panel. It says: "Thank you for your visit good night". Haguenau, France, December 5, 2020.Blackout Saturday is a documentary project of staged portraits of nightclub owners and night workers during the Covid-19 pandemic period which caused the total shutdown of this sector of activity in France.