Haut-Savoyard director Gilles Perret was in Grenoble (Isère), this Thursday, October 3, to present his new film “Au Boulot!”, produced with the elected representative of the Somme, François Ruffin. They challenge lawyer Sarah Saldmann to take positions paid at minimum wage. The opportunity to highlight “second line” workers.
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After I want the sun (2019) et Get up, women! (2021), the deputy for the Somme, François Ruffin (Ecologist and Social), and the Haut-Savoyard director Gilles Peret tackle “the reintegration of the rich” in their new film Get to work!. Starting point for this new collaboration: the former LFI elected official challenges media lawyer Sarah Saldmann to live on minimum wage for three months.
The BFM columnist thus tries her hand at different professions: delivery girl, restaurant waitress, farmer… Behind this bet, there is a whole gallery of workers from “the second line” which are honored by the two directors.
What are the themes addressed in your new film?
“It’s a documentary that talks about people who are in difficulty, who are trying to survive in our society, in adversity sometimes, because they have been made fun of, or because they feel a little despised by the columnists or editorialists who occupy the TV sets.
There, we give them back their voice, we try to give them back dignity. It’s not because we’re talking about difficult and sad things that we can’t add a little humor, fun, lightness, mixed with emotion, because we’re making cinema.
How did you choose the testimonials?
We tried to do the casting a little bit by guess and by knowledge. And always with very good surprises. It allows you to go to the neighborhoods, it allows you to meet a farmer, to go to a fish factory… We wanted to show France in its sociological diversity, in its geographical diversity and to show these professions of “the second line”. It was Emmanuel Macron who said that, during Covid: professions that needed to be upgraded. Obviously, nothing happened to them. What happened was that retirement changed to 64, so they took a shot behind the ears again.
Throughout the documentary, Sarah Saldmann gradually gives way to these characters…
It is gradually disappearing because it is a way for us to meet these people and make a difference. It works quite well in cinema, when we put opposites in films. Obviously, she is so above ground in her everyday life. But she allows herself to be judgmental about everyone on TV sets. There, she went to see herself on the ground: to meet these people, their difficulties, their humanity.
How was his experience?
We will give her credit for playing the game. Afterwards, she quickly returned to her environment, to her comfort. It is certain that we use that to undermine the preconceptions that people may have, in the upper middle class but also in the working classes, about those on welfare, about profiteers. We met people who are something other than welfare recipients, other than profiteers. People who just want to work and live with dignity from their work.”
The movie Get to work! will be released in theaters on November 6. In the meantime, several previews are planned in Savoie and Haute-Savoie: Friday October 4 at 8:30 p.m. at Ciné Cluses; Saturday October 5 at 6 p.m., at Ciné Mont-Blanc in Sallanches; Saturday October 5 at 8:30 p.m. at the Ciné Château de Bonneville; on Sunday October 6 at 4:30 p.m. in Chambéry at the L’Astrée cinema.
