After Rwanda last year, Switzerland is the guest of honor at the Angoulême Francophone Film Festival, the 16th edition of which opens this Tuesday, August 22 with the evening screening of La Petite (excluding competition), the new film by Guillaume Nicloux. Fabrice Luchini plays the main role in this adaptation of Fanny Chesnel’s novel, Le Berceau (Flammarion, 2019). The story of Joseph, sixty years old, who went to meet a young Flemish girl, Rita (Mara Taquin), surrogate mother of the unborn child of her homosexual son, who died in an accident.
Otherwise, Switzerland will therefore be in the spotlight this year, one year after the disappearance – one day apart – of two sacred monsters of Swiss cinema, Jean-Luc Godard and Claude Goretta. From Godard, we will see again Detective (1985), a film with drawers mixing police investigation, romantic breakup and boxing fight, served by a breathtaking cast (Johnny Hallyday, Nathalie Baye, Claude Brasseur, Laurent Terzieff, Jean-Pierre Léaud…); but also the marvelous Vivre sa vie (1962), with Anna Karina and the music of Michel Legrand.
Moving new: the screening of Godard’s last work, before he organized his assisted suicide last year. Its title is, in itself, a mise en abyme: Film announces the film that will never exist: Phoney Wars. Presented at Cannes, this twenty-minute posthumous short film is conceived as a book of collages where photos, sketches, sounds and still images are juxtaposed. “It’s my best film,” Godard reportedly said. See also: the portrait that Cyril Leuthy devoted last year to the director of Breathless, Godard, alone cinema, which shows a man who is sensitive but also inhabited, damaged and sometimes even overwhelmed by his art.
On the strength of this heritage, Swiss cinema has been able to reinvent itself with filmmakers like Ursula Meier and Lionel Baier, whose outstanding films can be seen: L’Enfant d’en haut (Silver Bear 2012), for the premiere; The Great Waves (to the west), for the second.
Several previews have been scheduled, always in this tribute to Switzerland: Last Dance!, by Delphine Lehericey, with François Berléand in the role of Germain, a contemplative grandfather wounded in the heart by the disappearance of his adored wife, Lise , whose memory he will celebrate by immersing himself, with the energy of despair – and unbeknownst to his children – in his latest artistic project, a contemporary dance performance. Ricardo and painting, by Barbet Schroeder, sensitive and impressionistic portrait of the painter of Argentine origin, Ricardo Cavallo.
“There is a real revival of Swiss cinema, says Ursula Meier at Point. However, it was difficult to go after sacred monsters such as Godard or Tanner [whose assistant she was, Ed]. Of these immense filmmakers, we are rather the grandchildren. Between them and us, there was a generation that paved the way for us and showed us the way. “When we see a film by Ursula Meier, Jean-Stéphane Bron or Lionel Baier, we are no longer told ‘it’s Swiss cinema'”, adds the Lausanne actress Anne Richard (the examining magistrate of the Boulevard du Palais series), also expected in Angoulême.
A neighboring country with often misunderstood customs, Switzerland conveys many clichés and received ideas: the Swiss are slow, practice tax evasion, cultivate neutrality and make the best chocolate in the world. “As in all clichés, there is always a bit of truth in it, but things are much more subtle, especially since the country is embarking on a kind of updating in many areas”, deciphers journalist Richard Werly . This former deputy editor-in-chief of Le Temps for a long time headed the Paris office of this great newspaper, published in Geneva. His latest book, France against itself (Grasset, 2022), is the uncompromising view of a Swiss on our country.
Otherwise, eleven films (French, Quebec, Belgian, etc.) are in competition this year. Seven of these feature films are the work of women, who offer very attractive roles to other women. We will thus find Laure Calamy in the new film by Caroline Vignal, Iris and the men; Yolande Moreau, heroine of her third feature, The Poet’s Bride; Anaïs Demoustier in The Time to Love, by Katell Quillévéré; Noée Abita as a young lawyer in Victoria Musiedlak’s debut film Première Affair; Nadia Tereszkiewicz in Stéphanie Di Giusto’s Rosalie, a subtle portrait of a “woman with a beard”.
After André Dussolier, in 2022, the jury will be chaired this year by Laetitia Casta. In addition to the films in competition, other previews are eagerly awaited: Testament, the new film by Denys Arcand (world exclusive); Abbé Pierre, a life of struggles, a biopic by Frédéric Tellier with Benjamin Lavernhe in the title role; Visions, a new thriller by Yann Gozlan with Diane Kruger and Mathieu Kassovitz; Nouveau Départ, romantic comedy with Franck Dubosc and Karine Viard; A matter of honour, Vincent Perez’s latest opus with Roschdy Zem, masterful as a 19th century fencing master…
Not to be missed, again: Peking Man, the Last Secrets of Humanity, by Jacques Malaterre, who signs with Yves Coppens (who died last year) this breathtaking docufiction, bringing to light the latest scientific discoveries on origins of Man, twenty years after the worldwide success of The Odyssey of the Species. But also the tribute to Patrick Dewaere by Yann Moix, told by the daughter of this cinema legend, Lola Dewaere (Patrick Dewaere, my hero); a portrait of Marlène Jobert by Dominique Besnehard (C’est moi… Marlène Jobert) and a concert (live) by Robert Charlebois, after the screening of a documentary on L’Osstidcho, a legendary show created in 1968 at the Théâtre de Quat’ Montreal sous.
Less glamorous than Cannes, the Angoulême festival? Maybe more laid back. But stars, there will be: Fabrice Luchini, Diane Kruger, Laure Calamy, Karin Viard, Benjamin Biolay, Mathieu Kassovitz… are thus expected until August 27 in the capital of Charente.
