directed by Guy Girard
From one 9/11 to another
Synopsis
Documentary trailer
In the film From one 9/11 to another, director Guy Girard follows high school students from Seine-Saint-Denis who discover the scene with Michel Vinaver's play on the attacks of September 11, 2001, ten years later.
From September 11 2001 by Michel Vinaver, collage of lyrics from the event, the director Arnaud Meunier and the choreographer Rachid Ouramdane propose, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the attacks in 2011, to create this play at the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris with five professional actors and high school students from three 11h grade classes, from three different institutions in Seine-Saint-Denis
Since the start of the 2010 school year and throughout that year, they have been working together on Michel Vinaver's text, written in the weeks following the destruction of the Twin Towers, with the desire to question this major event at the start of the 21st century and to question its current impact, conscious or unconscious, for young people who were 7-8 years old at the time and come from very diverse social, cultural and religious origins.
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The film directed by Guy Girard follows these high school students, who have no theatrical experience and most of whom did not know each other at the start of the year. From the first meetings to present the project to the students until the performance on the stage of the Théâtre de la Ville on September 11, 2011, including the weekly workshops in each high school, weekends and weeks of rehearsals during the holidays schools where everyone comes together around a common goal, all the major stages of this adventure are filmed.
Gradually, personalities emerge and assert themselves; new issues are emerging; and a story is written on the fringes of the theatrical project in order to emancipate itself from it. This film tells all this with infinite benevolence without obscuring the moments of tension that cross this artistic and human encounter with the backdrop of the attacks of September 11, 2001.
The director: Guy Girard
Guy Girard is a director and photographer. He has been evolving in the French and international cultural landscape since the 1980s. Born on July 31, 1950, he notably worked as a technical assistant at the HLM office in Vitry-sur-Seine, truck driver in Martinique, fisherman in corail in the Mediterranean, bookseller in Paris, photographer, film editor and, finally, director.
He has made about sixty films of various formats by carving out three furrows: portraits of artists; observational documentaries that explore French institutions; and experimental films akin to poems or essays.
A word from the director
On the one hand, high school students, girls and boys, who are going for the first time in their lives to star in a play that will be presented at the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris. On the other side, theater or dance enthusiasts who instigate this adventure. In the middle, a terrible attack that continues to haunt us. It is in the context of this face to face that the film will be played. In this place, between politics and poetry.
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Seine-Saint-Denis is a department where, more than elsewhere perhaps, the difficulties of our society in crisis appear in a harsh and abrupt light. Far from underestimating them, this film tries not to reproduce a frozen and cursory image of the suburbs. It highlights the dynamism and vitality of his youth, with its concerns, its contradictions, its weaknesses and its hopes.
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This is what I want to film, taking advantage of the great trust that the director Arnaud Meunier and the teams associated with this project have placed in me from the start. All the doors of high school workshops, rehearsals and preparatory meetings are wide open to me, which allows me to apprehend, according to my desires and my instinct, the stages of this formidable human adventure.
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Thanks to this complicity and this intimacy, this film has its own autonomy, its own rhythm, its own sensitivity. It is a unique opportunity for me to be able to follow the hundred students who participate in the weekly workshops under these conditions. In the end, about fifty of them will perform the play. We will see the individualities emerging, those who carry a particular grace in them. We will see how a group is forged; how, through discussion, the reflection of these adolescents on September 11, 2001 is questioned.
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The roles are not chosen but a large part of the high school students will play the choir. A choir in motion. A thousand miles from a classical children's choir. I will film these bodies taken in moments of beauty. I will focus on those who give us chills. With the hope that a miracle will occur. What attracts me is that this is not a commemoration but a projection into the future. This film will work on reflection, the critical and sensitive part.
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Guy Girard
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Director: Guy Girard
Associate producer: Jean-Marc Giri
Associate producer: Jean-Charles Morisseau
Artistic advisor: Fabien Spillmann
Image: Laurent Fénard
Sound: Laurent Rodriguez and Yolande Decarsin
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Format: XDCAM HD Video
Shooting: September 2010 - September 2011
Places: Seine-Saint-Denis - Paris - Saint-Étienne
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Partners:
Compagnie de la Mauvaise Graine (Arnaud Meunier and Karine Branchelot)
Citoyenneté Jeunesse (Jean-Michel Gourden)
Voillaume high school, in Aulnay-sous-Bois
Jean Renoir high school, in Bondy
Evariste Galois High School, in Noisy-le-Grand