In Sarlat, no jury of big stars. The stars are in front of and behind the camera of the selected films, and festival-goers, the general public and high school students shine as voters. They have just voted for a first feature film: Rabia by Mareike Engelhardt, who leaves with three Salamanders gold: Audience Prize, Youth Jury Prize, and Interpretation Prize for Megan Northam. The high school students collectively reward the second feature film by Aude Léa Rapin, Planet Band Benjamin Voisin is honored for his incarnation in Play with fire of Delphine et Muriel Coulin. The only jury composed of pros of the profession, that of short films, crowned Robespierre by Pierre Menahem, and offers a mention to Montsouris by Guil Saddle.
To stay or to leave seems to be a profound question, given this year’s official selection. Staying where we are, where we were born, where we grew up, where destiny seems to condemn us to remain, is the work of the young protagonists of the Grand Est of Their children after them of Ludovic et Zoran Boukherma and of Play with fire. A youth who struggles with social determinism, and who finds in anger and violence a way of life, even if it is temporary, to counter another cruelty, that of injunctions and orders to stay in one’s box, in full divide with others. A gesture which precisely questions the collective, the one which brought together previous generations, working parents, once united in the same societal movement. Today, the crevasse isolates and opposes, and brings forth the nauseating. Resilience sometimes fills cruel gaps (Their children after them), but sometimes not (Play with fire).
Others choose to leave. The younger brother of Play with fire (Louis/Stefan Crepon) will study in Paris, and get closer to an elite, to the great dismay of his elder (Félix/Benjamin Voisin), who remains stuck in the fold. In a reverse movement, the heroine of Hello asylum of and with Judith DavisJeanne, temporarily leaves the big city for the countryside, where she discovers a bobo lifestyle close to nature, and an alternative world trying to counter wild capitalism and liberalism. Young people are also sometimes tempted by extremes. The big brother Félix finds refuge in the extreme right in Play with fireand Jessica becomes Rabia in the eponymous film, and in the female fold of Daesh in Syria. Two terrible trajectories, where the loss of bearings leads to the worst, tainted with nihilism and blood, and jointly hailed in the awards for their vibrant interpretations.
