The film takes place between Charleville-Mézières and Revin, in the Grand Est, as with Pollux, your short film. Why did you choose this place?
This region, and more precisely this area of the Ardennes, speaks to me enormously. I had the feeling, from the first moments in Revin and even before shooting the short film there, that this town was the current social condition twin of the town in the Paris region in which I grew up at the beginning of the 2000s. All the meetings I had in the Ardennes went in the same direction: the people who live there have a fighting and generous soul, but they feel left behind, isolated because of deindustrialization, unemployment, lack of prospects.
Your feature film addresses precisely this notion of abandonment…
“The Fantastic Three” is a film that revolves around the question of abandonment: an absent father who abandoned his children, a mother who abandons her role as mother, an older brother who abandons his little brother, a friend who abandons his friends in a town where the inhabitants have abandoned the struggle and where the factory which supports them all abandons the territory. These are things that speak to me. When the system is too overwhelming to fight, we must find other ways to live and survive.
The three friends belong to different social classes. Is portraying their very strong bond a way of filming a utopia?
Yes, childhood and school are part of these rare opportunities for diversity. Later, it disappears. Whether in Revin [ville du Grand Est où se déroule l’intrigue, N.D.L.R.] or in Montreuil, it is something visible: public school allows a mix between future bosses and future employees.
