Two years after the action film “AKA” released on Netflix, Morgan S. Dalibert finds Alban Lenoir and takes him to the world of car races thanks to “Fast”, which follows a pilot played by Paola Locatelli.
What is it talking about?
Max has always loved going quickly. She doesn’t know how to do otherwise. So when she discovers karting, it is obvious: she will be champion of F1. Junior competitions are linked, the victories too. However, at 17, no stable holds it. His main fault: to be a young woman in a sport of men. Faced with this world which turns his back on him, only a former completely whimsical second zone driver still believes in his potential. One goal: make the fastest max.
Fast and Furious ?
Since it is about cars, speed and even family, it will be easy to see fast French fast & furious. Just for his title. But no, because there is no robbery or urban rodeo, and because the director Morgan S. Dalibert concentrated the game “Furious” In his first feature film, AKA, released on Netflix in April 2023 and already with Alban Lenoir: “I was getting out of a very dark film, where everyone dies and very gore, so there I wanted to do something brighter and solar”tells us the director laughing, during a sunny day on the Jean-Pierre Beltoise circuit in Trappes.
“It was a producer who came to see me with a script that was almost the film we shot, with Formula 1 and a story of Outsider. I was released from a very testosteroned film and there I was offered a film on a woman, where I saw the opportunity to rework with Alban but in a different register, with more comedy. And, so, this story of Outsider. project when I read the script. “
The main actor of the very muscular AKA, Alban Lenoir is certainly important here, but he is more secondary than Paola Locatelli, alias Max. Seen in the series so far everything is fine and the adaptation in film of dangerous connections on Netflix, the content creator and fashion muse makes her first steps here on the big screen, in the role of a young woman who tries to become Formula 1 pilot, therefore to win in a very masculine world. “If I had read a basic racing film script with a male pilot, I would have told myself that we had already seen it”says Morgan S. Dalibert.
“Having a female character and thus being able to play on the barriers we put or those imposed on us”
“There, it was the originality of the project: having a female character and thus being able to play, a little bit, on the barriers that we put on ourselves or those imposed on us. It made it possible to raise the ‘outsider’ side to another level, with this idea of having a woman in a world of men, who must therefore work two to three times more to hope to fight against guys. Life, to make sure that the script we had written was not in the west, that we were in the right one. “
“It was essential for me to meet these people”nous confie paola locatols. “I notably met Lisa Billard, who was 14 years old at the time and inspired me a lot, helped me a lot. Abbi Pulling too, who will soon compete in F1 and who is a great hope. From the second page of the scenario, he was not possible for me that another actress embodies Max. Because she is such an inspiring girl, who dares to codes and go to the bottom of things. Not to be walked on my feet.
“And then, through this character who evolves in an environment of men, the film represented my commitment to women. To say that we are capable of it, that we have the right to dream of great. That we can have our own fights, our own dreams, our own desires without having to justify each other. If Max can inspire at least one girl to go to her dreams, it is that we will have won everything.” If it takes shape in theaters, this victory will be the result of a total investment for the one who had never led before quick.
Universal Pictures International France
“This is the first time that I touched a steering wheel in my life when I did this F4 driving course just a year ago. It was incredible and impressive, when I was not a license. I was very afraid and in addition I had not understood the rules.” “You see the blue flag on the circuit [pour indiquer au pilote qu’il doit se ranger pour en laisser passer un autre, plus rapide] ?”asks us Alban Lenoir. “She had not understood and did not want to let me go beyond it. At least we understood that it was not at all a casting error: there was max in the tub even before filming, even before the license.”
“And yet, the day after this internship I passed the permit and I missed it, while I had literally led to 200km/h on this circuit.” There is no doubt that today, the person who made him pass the exam would change his mind by seeing the film, which rolls at high speed in the footsteps of Gran Turismo, cinema adaptation of the famous video game which was inspired by a true story: that of a player from the working class who managed to climb the ladder of the automotive world with the help of an ex-pilot.
SOUTH LAS TRACES DE GRAN TOURISM
Between the framework and the presence of real stables (here Alpine), her heroine who appears to be outsider and the story of her ascent, the film by Morgan S. Dalibert, a big fan of Le Mans 66, often recalls that of Neill Blomkamp. Also because he goes out in theaters when Aka had gone through the streaming box with Netflix, which is however involved in fast via A co-diaiffusion agreement. “When you set up a project, the first thing you want is that the project is done”explains the director to us, who had made his hand in particular as a managers of the first lost ball.
“And for a project of this kind, it is quite complicated to achieve the money and everything you need to do, so we explored all the options. We could have made a film that was 100% an original Netflix, but it was not done and I was very happy that the film is done for cinema, that it could meet its audience in dark rooms and with a real feeling of cinema. We accompanied us and said that, even if we were doing it for the cinema, they still came with us and would come out later on the platform.
But that is not a reason to wait for its outing in streaming, because the great strength of rapid, in a movie theater, is that you feel the speed of races and that the scenes in question sound right. And it may cause vocations, as desired by its main actress.
Interview by Maximilien Pierrette in Trappes on April 11, 2025
