Charlotte Silvera in the spotlight at the Cinémathèque de Toulouse: “I’ve always made feminist films”
Until Tuesday, the Cinémathèque de Toulouse pays tribute to a rare director, whose filmography constitutes a strong and unique work, to be discovered and re-examined.
Charlotte Silvera has directed 5 short films and 7 feature films, including two documentaries devoted to Etienne Roda-Gil. This original talent is brought to light by the Cinémathèque de Toulouse.
You started with short documentary films: how did you come to “Louise, the rebellious”, which caused a sensation when it was released in 1985?
By spending several summers working on what would become “Louise, the rebellious”. This film that I had in mind was demanding – especially because a lot of work in 1961 – so I spent many hours in the libraries! Louise is a young girl at odds with her family, religion, confinement …
Already a young woman, with a strong and impetuous character: we will find a lot of her in your filmography …
In “Prisonnières” (1988), I tell the story of these three anti-colonial women who supported the FLN at the heart of the Janson network. They were the first women to escape prison, four years before Albertine Sarrazin, who wrote the magnificent “L’Astragale”.
Then comes Sabine, the young rebel of “C’est la tangente que je préfère”, in 1998 …
She is 15 years old: I like to observe young people, to talk with them. The writing of this film was prompted by this reduced minimum wage that was offered to them: a political and committed film. I imagined the story of this girl, gifted in mathematics, who meets a man of forty.
“Escalade”, released in 2011, is an astonishing film: young people kidnap the principal of a high school …
The director of the Moscow festival liked this film: he told me: “As soon as you see a film that takes place in the French suburbs, it’s always Blacks and Arabs!” “In” Escalade “, it is young people from good families who kidnap the Principal … a foreigner, played by Carmen Maura! I think it’s my favorite movie.
Your cinema is very personal – can you say it is feminist?
I already claimed it in ’85! My friends, furious, asked me to shut up! women directed by the cinema, apart from which Agnès Varda? Bernadette Lafont said of “Prisonnières” that it was the first choral film; it has been said of “Louise the rebellious” that she was Antoine Doinel’s little sister and that it was the first film with a young girl in the lead role – well, there was Zazie and her metro, but this ‘was not the same … And “Escalade” is considered the first film since Hitchcock to Hold in Camera, with a single sequence shot!
To see, at 7 pm: “It’s the tangent that I prefer”, Friday December 17th, “Louise the rebellious” Saturday 18th and “We called him Roda” Tuesday 21st at the Cinémathèque de Toulouse (69, rue du Taur).