After the radio and the theatre, “Zaï Zaï Zaï Zaï”, Fabcaro’s successful comic strip arrives on the big screen

Released in 2015, the comic strip by Fabrice Caro Zai Zai Zai Zai (editions 6 Pieds sous terre) never ceases to be talked about. Crowned with numerous prizes (Landerneau BD, Ouest-France, ACBD…), it has also won over a very wide audience (we are said to have sold more than 300,000 copies). Adapted as a radio play, then as a theater play (there have been nearly five adaptations), it’s the cinema’s turn to take over this wacky and jubilant road movie.

Signed François Desagnat, the film will be released on the big screen on February 23 with Jean-Paul Rouve in the main role accompanied by a very fine line-up of actors including Julie Depardieu, Ramzy Bedia, Julie Gayet and Yolande Moreau.

Fabrice (Jean-Paul red) is an actor. While shopping, he realizes that he does not have his loyalty card with him. Faced with the guard who asks him to follow him, Fabrice refuses and ends up fleeing the store. On the run, he is tracked down by the police and the media. He ends up finding a base in a remote corner of Lozère.

After The speech by Laurent Tirard with Benjamin Lavernhe and Sara Giraudeau (2021), Zai Zai Zai Zai is therefore Fabcaro’s second creation adapted for the cinema. This time, it’s François Desagnat, co-director of the films The Beuze and The Eleven Commandments who fought to win the rights to adapt the comic (following the withdrawal of Rebecca Zlotowski). The filmmaker admits having had a real “comic shock opening this comic”.

I feel very close to his humor and there, he offers it to me on a platter. I just have to stage it

Francois Desagnat

Director

Fabcaro’s comic strip is full of quirky humor but also taunts with finesse all the major players in society (family, media, police, neighborhood…). “It’s both very thin and completely stupid at times. It’s exactly me”, laughed the director at the microphone of France Bleu. For him, the main difficulty was to adapt the mode of “very particular narration of the comic strip which stages very different universes from one page to another. We had to create a link to make a long film”.

The bet seems successful for François Desagnat, because Fabcaro salutes his work: “It’s very moving and touching to see that a little book that we made in our corner like that should have something on a giant screen with embodied actors. It’s a childhood dream!”