César 2022: Meeting with Élie Girard, director of the film "Les Mauche Garçons"

He is one of the fifty-five appointed to the César 2022. The director Élie Girard, who grew up in La Châtre (Indre), is in the running in the category of the best film of fictional short film.With "the bad boys", he begins a new step in his career.

That night is rainy.But that does not prevent the three young men from going to eat to their usual Kebab.Victor announces to his friends, Guillaume and Cyprien, that he will be a father.This news will upset the habits of this small group.

This is the beginning of the Middle Pilgue by Élie Girard, the bad boys, thirty-nine minutes on the clock.Already several times awarded-press prize at the Clermont-Ferrand Télérama festival in particular-he has just been appointed to César, Wednesday, January 26, in the category of the best film of fictional short film."It's a great step," enthuses Élie Girard, the director."It allows us to exist in the world of short film. For future projects, it counts really."

The discovery of cinema

It is also "a boost of trust" for this 38-year-old director, born in Cholet (Maine-et-Loire) and who grew up in La Châtre (Indre) and where he stays there until his bac.It was in adolescence that he discovered the 7th art thanks to a French teacher, "a good star"."I felt that I could grow up while escaping in something of the order of culture, beauty," he said.

Impossible to remember the very first films he saw.But he quotes Stanley Kubrick, the director of 2001, the Odysée de l'Espace.He also likes French cinema: the classics - Maurice Pialat, Claude Sautet, Eric Rohmer - as the most contemporary - Sophie Letourneur and Guillaume Brac.

When he discovers cinema, he still thinks behind the camera and not in front.Impossible for him to be an actor."If you turn on a camera, I go zero, I do anything. It's frustrating because it's beautiful to be an actor."Maisaffirmer his desire to be a director was long.He did not feel legitimate."I did not completely assure this desire."

Become legitimate

After the bac, he continued his studies: an audiovisual BTS in Angoulême (Charente), the faculty in Paris and finally Ens Louis Lumière in Lyon, between 2005 and 2008. Diploma in pocket, he launched into working life: AssistantTrainee camera on feature films but also director of photography on short films.He also produced music documentaries and clips, like that of Clara Lucciani.For Elie Girard, this experience of the sets is a plus when he embarks on the realization.It allows you to "understand a platform dynamic, to be more attentive, to be benevolent".

To continue his progress towards the realization, he first goes through writing.His computer is full of stories, without them coming to life."I wrote without having any desire or absolute need that it exists."To improve, he joined in 2015, for a year, the scenario workshop at the Fémis.

From a radio fiction to a medium-length film

When we look at the bad boys, you have trouble believing that history was first intended for France Culture.A series of ten seven -minute episodes where everything went through sound effects and dialogues.The project did not lead to Radio France.But he turned into a film."There were five characters at the start. When I rewritten, I kept four, then three, then two. The story, the anecdotes, the narrative arc, a pregnancy to which we do not assist,I kept them, "explains Élie Girard.

He also kept the title."We imagine bad boys. I liked the film to take the opposite view of this expectation. Inside, there is really what I want to tell, masculinity, a virility in time, looked at anotherangle".

It is this radio version that Pauline Seigland will read.With Lionel Massol, she has just launched her production box in 2015, films Grande eight.For a year and a half, they set up the project together."We immediately believed it. We told him what would happen in terms of funding, we would do it. We had a great partner, Arte, who pre-purchased the film, on theBase of the scenario. We had a small support from the CNC. And then the Grand-Est region and the city of Nancy supported us, "explains Pauline Seigland.Ten days of shooting, in October 2019. "This is the moment when I feel the most serene. This is what I did the most in my life," comments Élie Girard.

The director has not yet found his style."When we made a film, we have not yet invented who we are."But he likes to "be in immersion, with the sets, the characters, with a little short focal lengths, a fairly close camera, sets that move with them almost carnal".In any case, he wants to do something honest, sincere."The moments when we get out of our own modesty, we touch something just and very sincere. I try to hang on to that."

Thirty projections for bad boys

The bad boys go out indoors, associated with another short film, Pauline Tusservie by Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet.The programming is called "all boys and girls".It will be presented on February 9 at the Apollo, in Châteauroux (Indre)."They answer themselves well. These are people waiting, who see the trains passed. There is a beautiful similarity," comments Pauline Seigland.Thirty cinemas in France will project the diptych."It's just a bonus," says Élie Girard.

The rest for him?The distribution of 2022 on the ocs platonic chain.He co-wrote and co-directed this series with Camille Rosset.He also works on his first feature film."This is a goal that takes time".