FRENCH With ALBAN LENOIR BLOOD SAMUEL JOUY PAUL HAMY (UN FRANCAIS), A FILM BY DIASTEME LE CERCLE NOIR ©Fin Août / Photo Guy Ferrandis OFFICIAL SCREENINGS FRI. 11, 3:00 PM @ VISA SCREENING ROOM ELGIN (PUBLIC 1) SAT. 12, 12:30 PM @ SCOTIABANK 4 (P&I 1) SUN. 13, 8:30 AM @ CINEMA 1 (PUBLIC 2) SAT. 19, 5:45 PM @ SCOTIABANK 1 (PUBLIC 3) INTERNATIONAL SALES INDIE SALES COMPANY www.IndieSales.eu 32, Rue Washington – 75008 PARIS Tel: +33-1-4483-0227 Email: [email protected] INTERNATIONAL PRESS CAROLINE AYMAR [email protected] MARTIN GONDRE [email protected] Pictures and press kit can be downloaded on www.indiesales.eu « Diastème captures a restless, angry, violent vibe. » SCREEN « Impressive » HOLLYWOOD REPORTER « French Blood is the country’s first ever film to deal in depth with this subject ». LE MONDE Fin Août productions presents FRENCH With ALBAN LENOIR BLOOD SAMUEL JOUY PAUL HAMY (UN FRANCAIS), A FILM BY DIASTEME 97’ / DCP / 2.35 / Dolby SRD ©Fin Août / Photo Guy Ferrandis SYNOPSIS It’s the story of a Frenchman, born in 1965, on the outskirts of Paris. The story of a skinhead, who hates Arabs, Jews, blacks, communists and gays. An anger that will take thirty years to die out. A bastard, who will take thirty years to become someone else. And he will never forgive himself for it. DIASTEME’S BIOGRAPHY Although initially leaning towards a musical career, Diastème decided at the age of 20 to become a journalist. He wrote for the press during several years before turning towards litera- ture, cinema and theater. His first play as playwright and director wasLa Nuit du thermometre [The Night of the Thermometer], for which he received two Moliere nominations in 2003. He followed it with 107 Ans [107 years], adapted from his third novel, La Tour de Pise [The Tower of Pisa]. He staged several creations for the Avignon Off Theater Festival and in 2008 he put on a production of Albert Camus’ The Just Assassins. In 2009, he staged his own creation, L’Amour de l’art [Love of Art]. Diastème has also co-written screenplays for television (Close to Léo by Christophe Honoré) and for the movies (Les châteaux de sable [Sand Castles], by Olivier Jahan and Coluche, l’his- toire d’un mec [Coluche, The story of a Guy], by Antoine de Caunes). His first feature-length film as a director wasSunny Spells, written with Christophe Honoré (2008). In 2014 he directed French Blood which came out in French cinemas on June 10th 2015. His third feature film, Pimpette, was shot during the summer of 2015. ©Fin Août / Photo Guy Ferrandis INTERVIEW WITH DIASTEME What prompted you to write this film? When I returned to Colombes from time to time, It’s quite strange. I had started writing a book I could see how the youth were developing. called, Un Français [A Frenchman], whose Other gangs came into being: and then the subject was partially similar. Then, the day first skinheads. I saw them again when I was a that Clément Méric died* I saw on TV, faces student at Nanterre university in 1985. Symbo- that reminded me of those I had come across lically, the building we see in the background in my childhood and adolescence. Realizing of the movie’s first scene is the student hou- that these people were my age, and that they sing building at Nanterre University, where I carried within them the same hatred as when lived at the time. I myself was chased down they were 18, upset me terribly. Nothing had by extreme right-wing guys. I was participating changed. I found it extremely disturbing, and in an anti-racist movement, even if I wasn’t an at the same time I realized it made for a good active member. Later when I became a journa- story. I figured that if there was only one sub- list, one of the first articles I wrote for 7 à Paris ject that should be dealt with today, this was was about youth movements within political it: a character that we follow over a period of parties. I went to visit the Front National (Fran- thirty years, who manages to get rid of the ha- ce’s far right political party) as early as 1990. tred and violence deeply rooted in him. This I’ve always been interested in politics, but from was definitely a subject for a film, and after two a distance, and with a bizarre mix of irony and days I had written twenty pages. anger. As a result, this is a deeply personal film. All the more so because I have a violent What about this story makes it personal for side; I’m aware of it, I fight against it. The work you? of becoming an adult is about knowing when The main character is my age. He comes from to give up the anger and violence. the same place I do. I was born towards the end of 1965. I grew up in Colombes, in a nei- It what circumstances was the screenplay ghborhood that gave birth to the first gang of written? French skinheads. I knew these people; they I asked my agent to read those twenty pages were my early childhood friends. I was lucky, I’d written, and he told me to show them to I was able to leave. I signed up for a choir Philippe Lioret. I didn’t know then that he pro- that became the Paris Opera children’s choir. duced other movies than his own. So we met, I traveled. It was a whole other world: I left a and he said that I could count on his support. proletarian, uncultured universe, where people I wrote the screenplay in four months, digging were tempted by racism, for a very bourgeois, into the destinies of the people I had known: right leaning one, with fundamentalist catholic I did a lot of research, met some people, and tendencies! There were also many wonderful, thanks to internet looked up a number of things open-minded people. I was equally very lucky that otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to to have a big sister: very early on I would steal access. I imagined three characters around a her books. I read Prévert and Vian when I was hero that seemed to me to be representative of 10. I had access to culture; I met other people what became of this generation of young ex- outside of my social milieu, which wasn’t the treme right-wingers who were in their twenties case for all the young people in my neighbo- in the mid-80s. From the beginning, I decided rhood. that there wouldn’t be a counterpoint; no mo- ral lesson, no comments on Marc’s actions. * Clément Méric was a young far-left anti-fascist activist who was killed in a fight with a group of extreme-right skinheads. ©Fin Août / Photo Guy Ferrandis I wanted the audience to follow this story from Yet I found it very interesting that his name the inside. I tried not to treat any character like would be Lopez instead of Dupont**. I imagi- the “villain”, not to fall into caricature, even ne that his family came from Spain. My own if there is no doubt about what one end’s up parents were French colonials born in Algeria. thinking about Braguette’s development. The This said, I didn’t want to highlight anything in story itself illustrates my personal perspective particular. well enough. And through Marc, first a parti- cipant and then a spectator, we follow thirty What about the group attracts Marc? years of the extreme right-wing movement in They are his childhood friends, his brothers. France. The papers teem with stories of com- He’s not the group’s theorist, that’s Braguette’s munist blue-collar workers who today vote for role. Marc is a follower; he repeats what he’s the Front National, and their paths are quite heard, and just like in other gangs, when peo- easy to understand. Taking someone who went ple fight, they fight together. He’s rather stupid in the opposite direction was a challenge that I at the beginning of the film. The real problem found very exciting. with these people stems from ignorance. The schools of the Republic didn’t do their job with How did you come up with this elliptical them, much like, sadly schools today. Maybe narrative? one day, one of them will accidentally pick up a I had already written a “biopic” about the book and discover another world. Or perhaps French comic COLUCHE. The first version of share a job with a black person and find him the screenplay was 220 pages. The narrative to be really nice guy. They’ll find interests in covered thirty years. When Antoine de Caunes common, they’ll laugh together, and his thin- was chosen to direct it, we compressed the king will change. Unfortunately, this hatred of action. To avoid being too lengthy and to stay others, this plague, has grown over the last with Marc, I had to pick key moments: thirty thirty years. years of his life in fifteen or twenty sequences. Within each stage, we are always in motion What makes Marc change? with sequence shots, very little cutting, and a Small things: meeting certain people, an awa- lot of handheld camera work. From the begin- reness that develops over time. I didn’t want ning it was evident that the film called for this a “miracle” scene with a decisive moment, type of stylistic choice.