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FRANCE

Pierre Salvadori • Director of The Little Gang

"I could make an adventure comedy whose secret screenplay would be full of possibilities"

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- The French filmmaker explains his new arthouse comedy, where desires for friendship and togetherness in the twilight years of childhood overlap with the turmoil of highly perilous ecological action

Pierre Salvadori • Director of The Little Gang

Focused on a group of youngsters caught in a spiral of crazy, ecological guerrilla action, Pierre Salvadori’s 10th feature film - the adventure comedy The Little Gang [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Pierre Salvadori
film profile
]
- is released in French cinemas today by Gaumont (his most recent opus The Trouble With You [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Pierre Salvadori
film profile
]
having been unveiled in the 2018 Directors’ Fortnight).

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Cineuropa: Why make a film about a group of preteens?
Pierre Salvadori: To begin with, I toyed with the idea of a gang of no-hopers and a slightly idiotic political act. But then I realised I’d already done that, blunderers faced with something that was too big for them. But there was still something about it that captured my attention and I suddenly imagined it should revolve around children. This opened up a lot of possibilities in terms of group mentalities, loyalty, courage, how being part of a group can give rise to recklessness and craziness (you don’t dare say no, you’re afraid, you want to live up to people’s opinion of you, you become more daring, etc.). It all started to make more sense: it was their moment, their future, and these children who start out doing something stupid, running with an idea, for slightly selfish and ridiculous reasons (out of love, or a desire for revenge, etc.), then find the situation catches up with them and, post-event, they give meaning to this crazy thing which was bigger than them. I could make an adventure comedy whose secret screenplay would be full of possibilities: how the pleasure we get from being together results in an ideal, the « Hawksian » cinephile side about how we learn to live and fight together, but also about how the group takes precedence over the individual, how the group lifts you, inspires you, soothes you when you’re ailing and when you’re suffering within your family, but suddenly it all evaporates in innocence and joy. At that point, the film became clear to me very quickly.

The film explores ecology, but you don’t seem to have a militant agenda…
I didn’t want to make a film pontificating about ecology, or to lecture people. The subject is the group, the gang. Ecology comes a little after that; it’s a bit nothingy to begin with but it wins them over afterwards. The creation of the group is paradoxical because the person who initiates the project actually does it so that it fails. In fact, they’ve all got their own secret reasons for what they do. Then, as they spend time together, the vibration and euphoria takes over. They’re caught up by something far bigger than them, and that’s when their consciences kick in: they’re forced to give meaning to their act. The film is one long deliberation: they ask themselves lots of questions about what they do or don’t have the right to do. There’s a noble element to it, because they lean towards a form of beauty and they’re worthy of it, but there are inevitably misunderstandings because it’s a comedy and that’s what I like.

The setting - overwhelming nature - is totally in step with their growing awareness.
They’re steeped in nature. I had to get that right and to shoot the surrounding nature in all its vibrant beauty. All throughout my childhood, nature saved me, it enriched me. One particular vista in Corsica had a wonderful, magical, soothing effect on me. It’s the same in the film: the beauty of nature and of the river ennobles children, it helps them to grow and creates a real rapport with the ecological cause portrayed here: they understand the importance of this somewhat stupefying beauty. There are films about how we discover love, and this is a film about how we discover the beauty of nature and form a political ideal, as it were.

How did you balance comedy with the psychological profiling of your five protagonists?
In my mind, it’s really important to try to understand who is who in a film, as if we’re investigating the characters and we discover who they really are. But I also like films to remain something of a spectacle. Cinema is the last popular art and as Scorsese said, filmmakers are smugglers who hide subjects in adventure stories and in genre films. I like films to be entertaining, engaging and funny, but I also like for there to be a little something underneath all that.

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(Translated from French)

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