It's a story of ghosts, suddenly brought back to life.
Or at least, on the big screen.
With
The Almond Trees
, her 5th feature film presented in official competition at the 75th Cannes Film Festival, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi looks back on her debut as an actress at the Théâtre des Amandiers, in Nanterre, directed by Patrice Chéreau (played by a Louis Garrel in great shape), who gave lessons there with the actor Pierre Romans (subtle Micha Lescot).
A time when she devoted herself entirely to her art and her first love, with the same mixture of suffering, pleasure and unreason.
A time, too, when young people were intoxicated by their own passions, defying the creeping specter of AIDS.
To interpret her ex-comrades (through whom some have tried to recognize the people who really existed), Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi chose a group of young actors who are both funny and incandescent, Nadia Tereszkiewicz (who plays Stella,
his fictional double) and Sofiane Bennacer in the lead.
In a film where memories are made of flesh and blood.
To discover
To listen > our Scandals podcast “Ben Affleck: his friends, his loves, his demons”
In video, Cannes 2022: interview with Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi
Group work
Madame Figaro .- How did you choose your actors in
Les Amandiers
?
Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi.-
With Marion Touitou, the casting director, we looked for personalities, but also to form a group, an alchemy.
Obviously, the actors were evocations of the characters that we had written.
They had traits in common with them, but they could also diverge from them: for example, Sofiane Bennacer, whom I chose to play Etienne, was not exactly my idea of the character.
He had some essential traits: this something animal, charisma, crack and beauty, but with a different energy.
However, he imposed something so interesting that we retained it.
We also tried to create couples, of girls, of boys.
And above all, the one formed by Stella and Etienne, who carries the film: it had to be a film couple.
How did you work with this “troupe”?
We tried to find out if they could go to places that were a bit dangerous, if they weren't afraid of losing control a bit.
And also, if they were able to have humor about themselves.
This is a very important thing for me: everyone had to find their clown.
There are some for whom it is easier to be funny than profound, and others for whom it is the opposite.
This does not mean that they are less good actors.
I wanted a bit of everything.
In video, "06400 Cannes", the postcard from the Cannes Film Festival, episode 4
another youth
Why return today to your beginnings, your youth?
It was a friend, Thierry De Peretti, who gave me the idea and it seemed like a wonderful playground.
It was as if I was a child, the door to a beautiful square was opened to me and they said to me, “Here, now, why don't you go over there?”
I had all these memories to revisit, all this time.
I also had above all these people who are no longer there, and whom I could bring back to this square to play with me.
As well as talking about this love so important, that I had and which is no longer there.
Of my love for Chéreau, of my love for Pierre Romans.
There are many dead who have come back to life.
In making the film, it was also about becoming young again, in a way.
In any case, to rediscover the sensations of my youth.
Does this youth of the 80s have points in common with that of today?
I don't know today's youth very well because I have children who are still small.
It was with this film that I came into contact with her.
But basically, the essence of youth is energy, hormones, vitality, good health, the ability to rediscover joy.
The need to do things, to love and to be loved is lifelong.
Maybe the youth at the time were simply less afraid.
Today's is more conscious.
We were unconscious.
