Fiasco of the French delegation and bedbugs in the Olympic village in
L'Esprit Coubertin.
Shark in the Seine in the middle of a triathlon competition in
Sous la Seine
... Six months before the opening ceremony, the Paris Olympic Games are inspiring French cinema.
“I did not expect that the world of culture, whether cinema or others, would take over the event to this extent
,” underlines Dominique Hervieu, in charge of the Cultural Olympiad, artistic variation. of the 2024 Olympics.
In Lyon, for example, the eleventh edition of the Sport, literature and cinema festival is dedicated this year to the centenary of the Winter Olympics in Chamonix and the Summer Olympics in Paris, in 1924, with photo exhibitions, screenings and a meeting with the president of the Games organizing committee Tony Estanguet, accompanied by Dominique Hervieu.
“
There is a long tradition between sport and cinema
,” recalled Thierry Frémaux, director of the Lumière Institute which supervises the festival, during this meeting.
This history buff notably spoke in front of a packed room about the order placed by the International Olympic Committee on filmmaker Claude Lelouch for the 1968 Grenoble Winter Games. The film was titled
13 Days in France
, in reference to the thirteen days of tests, from February 6 to 18, 1968.
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Sport and cinema, a story that lasts
For Dominique Hervieu,
“cinema and sport historically have things to say to each other: they are two main popular forces of fervor, which attract millions of people”.
“I find it fabulous that artists, including in the cinema, want to participate in the party by taking advantage of the torrent of Olympic energy
,” she enthuses.
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The 2024 cultural agenda offers, in the wake of the Paris Olympics, more than 2000 events, in bookstores, major museums and cinemas.
Spectators have already been able to discover on the screens
Like a Prince
, a comedy with Ahmed Sylla telling the story of Souleyman, a young multi-medalist boxer, who gives up his dreams of Olympic victory with the French team after a stupid and irreversible injury to the hand.
The 39-year-old director Ali Marhyar, former boxing partner of several members of the French team, himself
“dreamed of the Olympic Games”
when he was younger.
“I met many athletes who were promised gold medals and summits
,” he remembers, marked by the depression of one of them after an injury.
“The starting point” of his film.
L'Esprit Coubertin
, presented in preview at the Alpe d'Huez festival, will be released in cinemas on May 8, the day of the arrival of the Olympic flame in Marseille.
In June,
Sous la Seine
, a thriller by Xavier Gens with Bérénice Bejo, who imagines a triathlon world championship in Paris, disturbed by the presence of a shark in the depths of the river, will be broadcast on Netflix.
For Jérémie Sein, the director of
L'Esprit Coubertin
, taking advantage of the 2024 Olympics was
“obvious”.
“I said to myself “but wait, there are Games in your country, in your city”, it was important for me to make a first film which would have sport as its arena”
, he explains to the AFP.
His references: the Barcelona edition in 1992, before which he was
“excited”
or the swimmer
“Laure Manaudou”
, whose story is
“intimately linked to the Games
” and to whom he
“thought of dedicating the film »
.
L'Esprit Coubertin
narrates the fiasco of the French delegation in Paris, all hopes of a medal falling to Paul, an exceptional but immature and not very smart sports shooter, around whom an entire country vibrates, played by Benjamin Voisin.
“That’s also what the Games are: thrilling for athletes that we didn’t know an hour before
,” laughs the actor, a fan of these Olympic television marathons every four years.
And if the pessimists see a premonitory side in the French rout depicted in the film, its director assures us:
“From the first day, we will have already won numerous medals”
.