Angoulême 2024 – day 4: In fanfare, Live, die, be reborn, Valérie Donzelli

Daily report of the 17th edition of the Angoulême Francophone Film Festival

Movie of the day: In fanfare by Emmanuel Courcol

In fanfare on the screen… and in the theater. Discovered at the Cannes Film Festival and carried by an enthusiastic (and justified!) buzz since then, Emmanuel Courcol’s new feature film was given a special screening last night at the Grand Théâtre d’Angoulême, followed by a concert by the Brass Band de Charente, an orchestra composed solely of brass and percussion, who gave it their all, carried by the warmth of an audience won over by the film they had just seen. After A triumph (which suffered from a theatrical release in the heart of the COVID years), Courcol confirms his ease in the art of the feel-good movie, moving but never cloying because it is always surprising in the way its story is told and in the subtle writing of multifaceted characters.

Here we follow Thibaut, a renowned conductor who, while he needs an urgent bone graft from a family member to cure a fulminating leukemia, discovers both that he was adopted and that he has a brother, Jimmy, from whom he was separated at birth. A school canteen employee who plays the trombone in the band of his village in the north of France. In fanfare plays on the clash of opposites, on the way in which each of the two brothers will have the opportunity to save the other in turn. From certain death in the case of Thibaut. From a life a little too narrow compared to what it could have been if he too had been adopted by a wealthy family in that of Jimmy. It questions the fraternal bond as well as social determinism by ignoring clichés or rather by playing with the a priori, those of its characters as well as those that we spectators can project onto them.

We obviously think of the Virtuosos and to all that part of British social cinema capable of giving birth to these chronicles where laughter and tears follow and overlap in the same incredibly fluid gesture. But Courcol is also and above all part of the French social landscape, that of this North still paying, always and more than ever, the consequences of a forced deindustrialization, of which he is the sharp portraitist. And in the same way that he made Kad Merad shine in A triumphthe Benjamin Lavernhe-Pierre Lottin duo, perfectly in tune, steals the show here.

Released on November 27th

The trio of the day: Lou Lampros-Théo Christine-Victor Belmondo in To live, to die, to be reborn

It is a film that is in the direct line of Wild Nightsof Please, love and run fast or of 120 beats per minute. Or rather who completes them. Like them, To live, to die, to be reborn talks about the brutal and devastating emergence of AIDS in the daily lives of people who love each other – in this case a bi boy, his straight partner and a gay boy – but its action takes place in the following decade, that of the 90s, at the time of the arrival of triple therapy which will save lives but will also force survivors who thought their end had come to rethink their existence, to give it a meaning, an energy, a purpose, even if it means distancing themselves from their previous lives.

Gaël Morel ventures here happily into the realm of melodrama with a great sense of romance in a gesture that strikes with its purity, its way of striking you in the heart without ever forcing the point. But if To live, to die, to be reborn is his most beautiful and powerful film to date, and he also owes it to a trio of electrifying actors: Lou Lampros (the sublime revelation of My night by Antoinette Boulat), Théo Christine (who was an impressive Joey Starr in Supremes by Audrey Estrougo, the film about the early years of NTM) and Victor Belmondo (who after Albatross And Stop with your lies bursts onto the screen like never before). Their charisma, their complicity, their talent for being as accurate in the explosiveness as in the interiority of the feelings they have to express throughout the emotional upheavals of this passionate story. This film will remain a decisive marker in their respective journeys.

Released September 25th

Documentary of the day: Conservatory Street by Valérie Donzelli

Valérie Donzelli was in the spotlight at this 2024 edition of the Angoulême festival, where all of her films as a director and her series Nona et ses filles have been screened since Tuesday. This focus ended in style yesterday with the screening of her new film, which proves that she is definitely never where we expect her to be. Shortly after her César for best adaptation (shared with her co-writer Audrey Diwan) for Love and Forestshere she is in charge of her first documentary, born from a meeting with Clémence, a student at the Paris Conservatory where she gave a master class.

Conservatory Street accompanies the show – a Hamlet revised and corrected – which Clémence stages before leaving school. Valérie Donzelli films the rehearsals and collects the confidences of Clémence and her performers (including Lomane de Dietrich, the revelation of Back who still shines on the screen) in this unique moment of their journey, just before taking flight, where no dream seems inaccessible. The empathy she displays, her way of being among them gives a particular emotion to this film which also subtly dusts off the image of the figure of the director, here anything but a tyrannical demiurge but capable of sharing his doubts without losing control of his troupe.

Released September 18th