Nice-Premium: Robin Renucci, what brings you to the Nice Book Festival?
Robin Renucci: Actually, a book (Smiles) titled “Eleven Meetings with Robin Renucci”. A book I co-wrote with a teacher to make young people more open to reading through the school system. This book is aimed at both teachers and students to embrace the artistic and cultural dimensions within the classroom. It’s both a technical and practical book. It’s the toolkit that allows entry into a sensitive universe at school.
N-P: For example?
R.R.: The work on verbs, language, the movement of speech, text, syntax, metrics…
N-P: It’s not just the publication of this book that attracted you to Nice, is it?
R.R.: Indeed, last night, I presented my first film at the Rialto cinema which will be released on Wednesday, June 20th. It was made with the inhabitants of a small mountain village in Corsica.
N-P: Another particularity of your film is the use of the Corsican language.
R.R.: Absolutely. It is mainly shot in Corsican, capturing its uniqueness and especially its openness to the world. The project is not at all inward-looking but instead aims to share this identity and to embrace all identities and differences.
N-P: Critics describe your film as a “joyous mess.”
R.R.: Yes, it’s a farce involving layers of tragedy, humor, drama, and comedy, in a desire to make the audience joyful around symbolic themes. This shared culture in entertainment, a daydream allows the very awake audience to experience cinema that is almost normal today. Since cinema is very formatted, this is a very unique film for a popular audience. A film to watch with the family.
N-P: Just watching the trailer, it seems this film brings joy.
R.R.: Yes, one leaves it feeling happy. On Friday, at the premiere at the Rialto, there were several hundred spectators. The street was full. We had to hold two sessions because there were so many people. It was very joyful.
N-P: By the way, what made you want to make this film?
R.R.: The desire to restore to popular culture the strong dimension that it owns. From popular culture emerges idealist culture. If we don’t engage with people where they are and with what they have to say, we cut ourselves off from the possibility of extraordinary creation. I wanted to make a film with the people of my village.
N-P: A book, a film… any other projects?
R.R.: I’ve also made a film with Sophie Marceau called “Les femmes de l’ombre” (“Female Agents”). It will soon be released in theaters.
N-P: Finally, if I say Nice to you, what image comes to mind?
R.R.: The awakening of a population that both lives its daily life and has desires to seek the unknown. And that, having the desire to discover, to adventure, on the theme of Hermes: a desire to meet the other which I feel particularly today.
Click on the film title to view the trailer: Sempre Vivu!: Release on June 20, 2007.
Film website: https://www.semprevivu-lefilm.com/
