"Glory Day" on Arte.tv: a fiction filmed and broadcast live on the evening of the second round of the presidential election

How will reality collide with fiction?

This is the big question that all the actors of "Day of Glory" ask themselves, Félix Moati in mind.

Because the end of the film, which tells the reunion of two brothers with very different visions of life, depends on the outcome of the ballot in the second round of the presidential election.

Filmed and broadcast live on the Arte website, its YouTube channel, as well as in around thirty cinemas, this Sunday from 7 p.m., this crazy project requires an equally crazy device, a promise of poetic expectation and completely out of step with the election results… which actors and the public will discover together at 8 p.m.

The press conference alone was surreal.

The Covid has certainly accustomed us to remote meetings, but, until then, everyone stood quietly behind their desks, microphone switched off, waiting their turn to speak.

There, it is a tree that appears on the screen, at the foot of which are grouped the actors, including Félix Moati ("Two sons", "No Man's Land") and Julien Campani, come from the theater, who play the two brothers .

At their side, François Pêcheux, co-producer of this incredible fiction, lets go of the pony he was holding by the halter to address the journalists.

"We are not going to leave the live news channels and football matches," he says.

Filmed and broadcast live on the evening of the second round of the presidential election, "Day of Glory" is a fiction film, on April 24 on https://t.co/feijFNAG1F, Youtube, Facebook and in around thirty cinemas.

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While the camera shows an old gray building and a well, the setting for tonight's fiction, Félix Moati.

“Glory Day” on Arte.tv Jeanne Frenkel and Cosme Castro, two directors who have been making live films since 2015, detail their ambition.

"The presidential elections are the weather of the film," they explain.

But it is first and foremost an intimate and family story.

That of Félix, who returns to his native village after several years spent in Australia, and of his brother Julien, who remained at the bedside of their sick mother.

The fiction recounts their reunion and their very different visions of life, but also their childhood memories, the alleys where they laughed, cried, or got angry.

A hyper-timed choreography

In a small village in Lot-et-Garonne, whose name will remain secret so as not to attract onlookers who might disrupt the filming, a five-hour sequence shot will take the spectators on a stroll, from the bar-tabac to the town hall, passing by the family home.

The music will be played live from a food truck.

This hyper-timed choreography, in which Julia Faure ("Camille redoubles"), Félix's childhood sweetheart, and Kamel Abdessadok, the village poet, will also take part, will allow the actors to return to settle in front of the television set to discover, at the same time as all the French, the face of the new President of the Republic.

In the team, the closer the hour approaches, the more the tension rises.

"There will be no second take or second performance", underlines Julia Faure, who still has trouble believing what she is about to achieve.

"It seemed completely impossible to me and that's precisely why it has to be done," laughs Félix Moati, who secretly dreams of a storm hitting the village that evening.

Julien Campani, he is more used to working with the couple of directors.

He confirms: “Cosme and Jeanne, when they call you, you always have the impression of making a robbery.

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"Everything is very written, very rehearsed", insists Jeanne Frenkel.

Two major unknowns remain: the weather and the outcome of the ballot.

For the first, even if Cosme Castro recognizes that "when you watch figure skating, you want them to fall after the loop", the directors have a plan B. Even a plan C. As for the second... "If Marine Le Pen is elected, it will be difficult not to film a collapse ”, advances Félix Moati.