Emerging Festival in Occitanie: actor Pascal Miralles meets Chaurian schoolboys and film buffs

“Acting is a profession that can be learned,” explains Pascal Miralles in a peaceful voice. The French comedian and actor, who appeared in particular in the successful small screen series “Un si grand soleil” and “Tomorrow belongs to us”, came to meet the fourth and third year students of the cinema option from Les Fontanilles college in Castelnaudary (Aude), on January 14. This event took place as part of the first edition of the Festival of Emergences in Occitanie, open to people under the age of 18 and for which around twenty film-loving students made a short film with their smartphone of a duration of maximum ten minutes on the theme “Freedom”.

A career as a common thread of exchange

Thus, Pascal Miralles was warmly welcomed by the enthusiastic students, in the presence of their teacher Elodie Serdan responsible for leading the biweekly cinema workshop. The teenagers unfurled a welcome banner, and a round of applause rang out in the entrance hall. A moment of discussion then took place in one of the classrooms, where the career of Pascal Miralles in the sixth and seventh arts was at the heart of all attention.

The students, who had prepared their questions well in advance of the meeting, were interested in his studies at the Florent course, in the process of a casting, and whether acting and acting are difficult professions. “These are trades that can be learned. Even today, I am training,” assures Pascal Miralles in front of an attentive audience. He talks about the studios of “Plus belle la vie”, the southern accent of his character in the series “Les Planqués”, the blindness of another character he plays in “Panda”, a police television series, alongside by Julien Doré. When a student asks him if he has ever been stressed during a shoot, he answers sincerely: “Always, there is the desire to do things well, to please the director. We are naked on a set , and everything is happening very quickly.

He also recounted his first steps on stage, when he was just a teenager who discovered theater in his middle school club, and deepened his experience in his high school club where he landed “the leading role in a play by Boris Vian, and the teacher advised me to go to the conservatory”, he remembers. Childhood dreams were revealed, when the young Pascal Miralles dreamed of being a cabinetmaker. “My father and my uncle were manual workers, and made wooden toys for me. It was fascinating, and I then discovered that I was not good at tinkering. I have a deep admiration for craftsmen,” assures the actor. . The meeting continued with a signing session.

“A touching interest from the students”

The short film by the young Chauriens will be broadcast during the first edition of the festival, which will be held in the town of Castelnau-Le-Lez on May 17. An event that allows us to maintain a real connection with young people. “I want to transmit,” explains Pascal Miralles, who found the students’ interest in this meeting “very touching”. Furthermore, the first edition of the Festival of Emergences in Occitanie – of which the actor is the artistic director and which has the support of the Mazart Endowment Fund and the Cercle Mozart Montpellier – aims to “encourage, highlight and to support the young talents of today who will make the cinema and series of tomorrow.