Agathe Riedinger on “Rough Diamond”: “Social networks are the biggest reality TV in the world”

It was on a rooftop on the Croisette that Cineman met the French filmmaker during the Cannes Film Festival last May. Her first feature film, “Diamond in the Rough,” was one of four features directed by a woman in official competition.

(Comments collected and formatted by Marine Guillain)

“Rough Diamond” follows a French teenager, Liane, who dreams of becoming a reality TV star. With this first feature film, Agathe Riedinger offers a fascinating dive into the depths of an ambiguous environment and a phenomenon that unleashed passions when it appeared on French television, more than twenty years ago.

Cineman: “Rough Diamond” is an extension of your short film “J’attends Jupiter”, which you directed in 2017: why are you so interested in the theme of reality TV?

Agathe Riedinger: I’ve been watching reality TV for a long time, I still watch it today. Seven years ago, I wondered about the entertainment that reality TV is supposed to be, which deep down is not light, because these programs are produced with a lot of class contempt and convey values ​​such as hypersexualization of women and rape culture. We see impunity regarding harassment or sexual assault. I found this violence so strong that I needed to talk about it. Reality TV is also the mirror of society, which highlights increasingly extreme and radical values. And then there is a real ambivalence in this universe.

Ambivalence… at what level?

AR: I thought a lot about the motivations of the candidates, who mainly come from working classes. For people who have less access to studies or employment, reality TV can be an alternative to unemployment, a means of accessing social status, of ticking the boxes of success as capitalist society tells us. orders, an opportunity to regain dignity. It can also serve as a springboard for influencers: social networks are the biggest reality TV in the world, these two worlds need each other to exist.

Has your view of these shows evolved over the years?

AR: Of course. I started by watching Loft Story, as a pure entertainment show. There is an identification and a proximity that is created with the participants, to whom I felt very close. Then, my gaze became analytical and critical, when I saw the women who were subject to harassment or injunctions. One day, I saw a documentary about the great courtesans of the 19th and 20th centuries, who we call cocottes. These are women from modest backgrounds who used their beauty to free themselves from their condition and put the greatest men in Europe at their feet. This ascension and this relationship to the body and clothing is identical, a century apart!

In your opinion, do the candidates in this type of program therefore submit to the injunctions or, on the contrary, do they reverse them to their advantage?

AR: Exactly, that’s the question I still ask myself. Like the chicks, perhaps they use their beauty as a weapon to assert themselves and emancipate themselves from the patriarchy. Or maybe they make themselves desirable because that’s what society expects of them. Reality TV shakes up a lot of codes on the representation of women and beauty, from which I find that there is a lot of power.

Who is Liane and how did you arrive at this character?

AR: Liane is a general portrait of multiple reality TV candidates and the courtesan Liane de Pougy. She is angry and idealistic, she has a dream that she clings to. Religion has an important place for her because it gives her strength. At the same time, it shows her vulnerability, her depth, she is looking for support that she did not find in her family, with her mother. She locked herself behind the image she wanted to create, she constructed herself through the gaze of others, she suffered the pressure, the tyranny of beauty. She is focused on her goal and this obsession leaves little room for joy.

How did you find the actress, Malou Khebizi, who had never acted in cinema before?

AG: Liane feels unknown, crushed and invisible, so for it to be coherent, I needed a young girl who arrives with an absence of playing codes and experience. We did a wild casting call which took place over eight months. We met Malou very quickly, but I took the time before offering him the role. I wanted to make sure that she would have enough perspective to understand the character and not get swallowed up, either by Liane or by the workload on the set, which was going to be very physical. Working with young women who don’t have the same codes and who see things in a different way than me has been very interesting.

How did you think about the visual aspect of “Rough Diamond”?

AR: To write, I need to have images in my head. The 4/3 format was wanted from the start, it creates a very iconic image and allows you to work off-camera. I find this format very rich and in this case, it allows us to show the confinement in which Liane feels. In terms of colors, it had to be flamboyant, incandescent: Liane wants us to see her, so the film had to be colorful, charged and dense.

More information on “Rough Diamond”

In theaters November 20.

Trailer for “Diamond in the Rough”

The Cineman editorial team also recommends: