Rapper and actor Guillaume Tranchant, aka Gringe, was the guest of the Feat SunSète Festival as part of a focus on his cinematographic work. Meeting.
You have a special link with the city of Sète, can you explain to us why?
For his job, my dad, about twenty years ago, came to take over the management of the Sète theater. My mom also did theater and I spent my entire youth on the folding seats or in the wings watching the actors and actresses on stage and off. My mother still lives in Sète, my two little brothers too, my grandmother and my aunt migrated from Paris to settle here… I have been coming here regularly for about fifteen years and I am attached to this city. It is a city that breathes. From Miam to the frescoes that you find everywhere in the city, it is Sète that is very rich in terms of culture. There is a real mix and the feeling that a lot of things are happening there.
You participated in the last edition of the Feat SunSète Festival. What is your mindset regarding the end of the event?
If we put this in resonance with the current political context, I don’t give much of culture. What is happening with SunSète is an example. They went from 15,000 euros in subsidies to 500 euros just a few weeks before the festival… I find that lamentable. But the beautiful thing is the participatory aspect and the way in which we continue to help each other. There is a small note of hope because people like them are organizing in resistance to continue to keep the culture alive. In this sense, Charlélie, the director of SunSète, is a real activist. Whether behind the scenes or on stage, everyone must take responsibility, regardless of the medium. Especially when the climate stinks (sic) like today and we know that culture is one of the fuses that blows first when the extremes are in power.
In an interview given in 2017 to Free Midiyour father said that theater served as a social elevator for him. Was it the same for you with rap?
My father comes from a very modest and rural background. It was a bit of a war with his family and those around him to emancipate himself. He really fought to be able to take that elevator. I saw him work in youth centers, we lived modestly and it’s complicated to make theater your profession when you come from a rural world. He managed to make his mark. For my part, I never had any desire to become an actor, it’s funny that at 40 years old this profession caught up with me. But it makes sense in relation to the trajectory of my parents and my heritage. Rap was a means of expression when I lived in Cergy and I was 15 or 16 years old, it’s a culture that came to me and my friends. I grew up in a suburban neighborhood, not in a housing project, but rap is a music that comes from the neighborhoods, a music of urgency. I was touched by that. It’s my culture: in the same way for my parents it was theater, for me it was rap.
The issue of mental health is a recurring theme in your work…
I am the sponsor of an association called the Maison perchée. It is a non-medical structure managed by bipolar and schizophrenic people. It serves as a missing link between places of decompensation such as the home and the psychiatric hospital. It’s a real landmark and a shelter run by people who know what they’re talking about, so that’s reassuring. I myself have a schizophrenic little brother with whom I wrote a book two years ago called Together we bark in silence. We sold 90,000 copies, which allowed me to tour literary salons. I also took the opportunity to visit many psychiatric hospitals and meet with associations that work with psychotic people. It’s something that particularly affects me and I use my little megaphone to free up speech.
