At the heart of Judith Godrèche's accusations and both targeted by a complaint for rape of a minor under the age of 15, Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon, aged 77 and 79, are each about to release their new film.
CE2
, a new feature film by Jacques Doillon, is still announced for March 24 by its distributor Les Acacias.
It tells the story of Claire, a CE2 student, harassed by two schoolchildren, Kevin and Anthony.
The principal, warned by the child's mother, did not react and left the children in the same class.
Claire and Kevin start by hating each other before gradually getting to know each other.
This film is part of the great tradition of films about childhood, such as Truffaut's
400 Blows
, Maurice Pialat's
Naked Childhood
or even
Ponette
, one of Jacques Doillon's most famous feature films.
“For CE2, I first wanted to return to childhood.
And I wanted to talk about children aged 7 or 8, who were absent from my filmography
,” explained the director in 2021 during a debate reported by
Charente Libre
.
When looking for a subject,
“the harassment came straight away”
.
But Doillon chose to look at it through the prism of early childhood: “
We talk a lot about middle school, where the consequences can be more serious.
But in reality, it exists from the nursery.
We already see the dominant and the dominated.”
With
CE2
, however, Doillon refuses any Manichaeism:
“For me, harasser and harassed are victims.”
It starts from the postulate that the executioner
“was often a victim earlier in his life.
So, in my film, there is a victim from the present and another who goes through his suffering in another way
.
The filming of
CE2
took place in the medieval district of Billom, in Puy-de-Dôme, during the summer of 2020. Nora Hamzawi, Alexis Manenti and Doully are together to star in this drama.
Screened at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in 2022, the film particularly pleased Brigitte Macron who discovered it at the Angoulême Francophone Film Festival in 2021.
“I am extremely touched,”
she explained, according to reported comments. by
Le Monde.
“Jacques Doillon has one eye, he knows how to film them
[the children] extremely well (…).
It’s very important to go see it
[the film]
if we want to understand certain mechanisms,”
said the first lady, who has been involved in the fight against school bullying for several years.
CE2
had something to appeal to schoolchildren.
But that was before the complaints and the testimony of Judith Godrèche.
Since then, Jacques Doillon has been ousted from the Viva il cinema!
of Tours when he was supposed to chair the jury.
Is the planned CE2
projection
compromised?
The festival's press officer assures Le
Monde
that the organizers do not wish
to "make a hasty decision"
.
Benoît Jacquot's new film,
Belle
, should be released in theaters later this year.
Bringing together Charlotte Gainsbourg and Guillaume Canet as headliners, it tells the peaceful story of a couple, Pierre and Cléa.
They welcome Belle, a friend's daughter, for the year.
One day, Belle is found dead and Pierre, alone at home at the time, is accused of the crime.
This feature film is an adaptation of a dark novel by Georges Simenon,
The Death of Belle
.
With a budget of 3 million euros, the film is co-produced by Marie-Jeanne Pascal of Macassar Productions and Philippe Carcassonne of Ciné-@.
It is currently in post-production.
The release of this feature film remains pending;
the distributor KMBO declared to
Libération
on February 8 that it did not want
to “make any statement on this subject”
.
Philippe Carcassonne declared:
“We will not comment at this stage of the complaint or the investigation on other aspects of the debate.”