"Without having to think that we are doing a good deed, why not from time to time encourage people who want to change things?".
Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache embark on a new adventure with
Épopée Joyeuse (1)
, a documentary series they co-produce (and directed by Paul Frère) on Cafés Joyeux.
This chain of restaurants imagined by Yann Bucaille-Lanrezac and located in major French cities and abroad has the particularity of hiring employees with mental and cognitive disabilities.
From the inauguration of the address on the Champs-Elysées in the presence of the presidential couple to the opening project in New York, via the pandemic, the filmmakers have followed this crazy adventure, strewn with pitfalls and full of energy, which they saw as the "logical continuation" of their film
Hors Normes
.
Released in 2019, their dramatic comedy told the true story of two educators (played by Reda Kateb and Vincent Cassel) working, through their associations, in the world of autistic children and adolescents.
Meeting with two philanthropists apart.
Inclusion at the center of the project
Miss Figaro. - How was this
Joyful Epic
born ?
Eric Toledano.
-
Yann Bucaille-Lanrezac, the founder of Cafés Joyeux, wrote us a letter asking us to meet him after seeing
Hors Normes
during a screening at the National Assembly.
Olivier Nakache.
-
In the last burst of promotion for the film, we were near the Opera and as a Café Joyeux had opened in the neighborhood, we offered to meet us there for a coffee.
He told us about his adventure, we took a tour of the kitchens and met the teams on site, in particular Louis and Abou who we discover in the series.
AND-
We felt like we belonged in this café, we were fine, the waiters were laughing with us, a young girl came in saying "two coffees for the pretty kids!", the atmosphere was relaxed and we Very quickly sympathized with the employees.
ON-
We were good and then it's super good!
Thierry Marx is an adviser on the kitchen, Sarah Lavoine does the decorating… Everyone joined in trying to help Yann and his wife Lydwine in this adventure.
In video, the trailer for
Épopée Joyeuse
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Who is the founder of Cafés Joyeux, Yann Bucaille-Lanrezac?
ET-
He is passionate and a “welder” because he is one of the people who bring society back together a little without naïveté, without naivety and with the difficulties that entails.
What I found great in this adventure was to observe Yann transcend the hardships, in particular that of the Covid which led to the closure of restaurants.
I found it interesting to see how this pandemic had been experienced by people for whom it is a chance to work.
We can clearly see, in the documentary, that for the employees of the
Cafés Joyeux,
these closures are a tragedy.
We feel it in particular in the loneliness expressed by some.
The whole essence of this documentary is to say that by finding a place and a job for everyone, we take the person into account because it is through work that we realize ourselves.
ON-
Yann is a pioneer who ventures into land that is generally mined.
It puts fragility at the heart of cities, but it may be a solution to a lot of things to include this segment of the population by making them work.
Les
Cafés Joyeux
are not associations, they are for-profit and truly represent an economic model.
AND -
This is also what interested us because an intelligent model is a priori taken up by others: this is what we discover at the end of the doc with the opening of a
Café Joyeux
in Lisbon and the project of open in the United States.
It's not just the story of a guy who manages to do something, it's how his idea can become a model.
We saw this adventure as the logical continuation of our film
Hors Normes
(2019) which is inspired by the true story of David Benhamou and Daoud Tatou, two educators who have somewhat transcended the rules, and created models that have been taken up and encouraged where the State sometimes fails.
Highlighting these personalities to make them known and help them develop is of interest to us.
And by chance, in the same month, we launched
Les Rencontres du Papotin
on France 2 (
a program that takes up the DNA of the newspaper Le Papotin, whose editorial staff is made up of journalists, non-professionals, carriers of autism spectrum disorder , Editor's note
).
Full screen
Happy Cafe QUAD+TEN
An intimate experience
What was the reaction of Gilles Lellouche, first guest of the
Rencontres du Papotin
, after his interview?
ON- We have been following the editorial staff of
Le Papotin
for almost 10 years
and there is not a guest, us included, who does not say when leaving: “I have never experienced this!”.
There is a letting go which is not at all orderly in interviews but which is good, especially in our time when we pay attention to everything, to every word spoken.
Afterwards, it's true that it can be destabilizing because we're talking about intimate things.
AND-
Inevitably, Gilles Lellouche had the impression of having dropped something when talking about his father and his daughter, but it is precisely when we have the impression of having lost control a little that it is interesting.
As Olivier says, we live in a time when we want to control everything for fear of what we might say, and not and the impact it can have on social networks.
But our mantra on
Hors Normes
(2019) was: “the margin enlightens us about the norm”, i.e. going to the margin and looking at what is happening there can tell us how normalized we are.
We can sometimes be a little suffocated by the rules, the codes and we have to learn from time to time from those who break and cross the codes.
Olivier and I are overjoyed that the show is scheduled one Saturday a month at 8:30 p.m. on France 2 and we hope it will last until the end of the year.
The next guest of the
Papotins
?
Camille Cottin.
Full screen
Camille Cottin with the editorial staff of
Papotin
.
Elise LINARES-FTV
What will your next film
A Difficult Year
be about ?
ET-
It's a comedy that deals with the relationship between a generation that has bathed in consumerism and the one that is coming and that bets more on recycling and minimalism.
We tried to have fun with these two worlds by recounting the infiltration of two over-indebted men in an ecological association with, in the cast, Jonathan Cohen, Pio Marmaï, Noémie Merlant, Mathieu Amalric, Luàna Bajrami, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet and a whole cast of wonderful young actors and actresses.
The film is scheduled for release in October 2023.
Red string
Do you think about making films for the same reasons as when you started?
ET-
We were perhaps more instinctive and in love with cinema when we started, but over time, I would say that we get closer to ourselves.
The luck we had was that the success of some of our projects gave us unexpected freedom.
This allowed us to explore universes that were more difficult on paper and to hatch projects like
Samba
,
In Therapy
,
Joyful Epic
,
Les Papotins
…
ON-
I believe that our DNA is still the same.
When we watch our first short film,
Les Petits Souliers
(1999) in which Jews and Muslims played Santa Claus, it is clear that it was already a question of comedy, collective and social.
When do you feel most useful in your job?
ET-
Useful, I don't know, but fiction has shown during confinement that it helps us survive reality.
When the first season of
In Therapy
(2021) came out while people were stuck at home, we received messages from viewers telling us that the series was doing them good and that some even felt like they were in to analyse !
So there, yes maybe, that we felt useful…
Find movie theaters
Do you envisage a season 3 of
In Therapy
?
ET-
Not at the moment because we want to go back to the cinema.
We miss cinemas and given the drop in cinema attendance, we want to participate in the effort by trying to bring spectators back to cinemas.
ON-
We want to find the public, to see it, to hear it, and only the cinema provides that.
(1) Épopée Joyeuse
, directed by Paul Frère, every Thursday evening from September 22, in the second part of the evening on
CANAL+ and available on myCANAL
(2) The Papotin meetings
, October 8 at 8:30 p.m. on France 2.