Don't let the trailer fool you. Twenty gods by Louise Courvoisier is not a naturalistic film like Bruno Dumont! This is one of the exciting and galvanizing discoveries of 2024. Awarded at Cannes and Grand Prix at Angoulême, this first film created a nice surprise by taking spectators to the heart of the Jura with an enticing pitch. Totone, a young 18-year-old farmer left alone at the head of the family farm, decides to create the best county in the region to win the 30,000 euros that would get him out of trouble.
Clément Faveau, a non-professional actor, is astonishingly natural in the role of this boy determined not to sink in the face of galloping adversity. Also taking care of his 7-year-old little sister (Luna Garet, cute), he is one of those everyday heroes that we want to support from the first images of the film. “I don’t come from the Jura. I took inspiration from those around me, from my village in Haute-Saône, explains director Louise Courvoisier to 20 Minutes. But I come from rural France which I wanted to reveal in my film. The idea of opening the door to a region that we don’t necessarily know very well motivated me.”
Not depressing for two cents!
Twenty gods does not hide the difficulties of the agricultural world but is absolutely not depressing. If we think of Little farmer by Hubert Charuel and In the name of the earth by Edouard Bergeon, Louise Courvoisier's approach is very different. The filmmaker plays the card of realism while remaining optimistic. “It was not a question for me of making the audience depressed,” insists the filmmaker. My desire was to show the countryside that I find under-represented in cinema.”
From the opening, a beautiful sequence shot in a village festival, we plunge into the lives of the protagonists treated with as much tenderness as modesty. “I counterbalanced the hardness of the profession with the joys that farmers can also feel,” explains the filmmaker. Their love for this all-consuming profession must have been obvious and that is why I wanted to choose issues anchored in the territory like this county that Totone wants to create.”
Natural actors
Louise Courvoisier knew how to surround herself with stunning non-professional actors after a wild casting call. “She came to see us at my agricultural high school,” remembers Maïwène Barthélémy. I participated in the selection for fun and when I was accepted, I found myself so much in the character of Marie-Lise that I agreed to play it. » The young woman is breathtaking when we see her running her dairy farm on screen while supporting the main character to whom her character is attached. “Louise shows the agricultural world in a very realistic way. This is also why I wanted to participate in his film,” declares Maïwène Barthélémy.
After experiencing the splendor of Cannes and being pre-selected in the César revelations, she kept her feet on the ground. “I am doing a work-study program to obtain a specialization certificate in dairy farming,” she explains. I'm half at school and half on a farm. This film was an enriching experience that I thoroughly enjoyed while not knowing if I would ever have the opportunity to make films again. »
A cheese thriller
We wouldn't have thought we'd write this one day, but the actors, although excellent, of Twenty gods have the spotlight stolen by a cheese. This famous county which is at the center of all the action and which we watch being made with relish. “If the county didn’t inspire the desire, the film wouldn’t have worked,” says Louise Courvoisier. We had to find a way to make it appetizing at every stage.” The bet won, we are convinced at the end of the film that there is no more romantic gift than a county wheel. Juggling between the fake and the real to make the whole thing appetizing was no easy task.
“The most difficult thing was knowing when to inject fiction into the middle of realism,” confides the director. The process of creating cheese had to correspond to reality while being a constant source of suspense.” It is one of the strengths of his film to be instructive without being didactic. “We really made cheese, the real production with the little sister at the end and therefore, we were really able to get into the material and make this material sensual.” This ritual offers one of the most beautiful sequences of a delicious film to be enjoyed in cinemas.
