Each year, from 1983 to 1995, he followed the development, dreams and sorrows of a group of students. Michel Fresnel, a delicate documentary filmmaker with a passion for ordinary people, died at the age of 91.
By François Ekchajzer
Published on October 1, 2024 at 6:05 p.m.
Dhe documentary filmmaker Michel Fresnel, who has just died at the age of 91, will remain above all the memory of What will become of them? An extraordinary television adventure which, from 1983 to 1995, accompanied the evolution of a group of girls and boys, sixth grade students at the Paul-Valéry high school (Paris 12ᵉ). “The idea came to me [en 1973, ndlr] driving my daughter and nieces to school, he told us in 2010. I was fascinated by these children with such strong personalities, yet so different from each other. I wondered what their lives would be like, their happiness and the trials they would go through. »
Imagined at a time when teenagers’ speech was not so frequent on television, her project waited ten years to finally see the light of day thanks to Pascale Breugnot, appointed in 1982 to the direction of magazines at Antenne 2. She, for Who “everyone can have a much richer, more nourished reflection on their life than an expert”, fought for this long-term undertaking.
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“How’s life going?” » asked Michel Fresnel every beginning of the year to Florent, Franck, Ingrid, Isabelle, Jérôme, Philippe, Sandrine and Valérie, “heroes” of this documentary series who quickly became familiar to us, to the point that we waited for their news, measuring the weight of psychological and social determinisms in the journey of each of them. Delicately interviewed by Hélène Delebecque and Annie-Claude Elkaïm, they confided their thoughts, their dreams, their doubts and their sorrows to the camera of this craftsman of warm and modest television, attentive to ordinary life.