Christian Duguay and Storm | Mission: Bring people back to theaters!

Christian Duguay took three years to finish Storm and to make this Franco-Quebec co-production a film worthy of a trip to the cinema, intended for the whole family. Mélanie Laurent and Pio Marmaï are the headliners of a drama built around the passion for horses. Meet.

When producers submitted to him the idea of ​​directing the film adaptation of Christophe Donner’s novel, Christian Duguay did not hide having hesitated, seeing in it a similarity with Jappeloupthe successful film he offered in 2013. But for the one who was in his youth Canadian junior equestrian champion, the idea proved irresistible, although he wanted to put everything in his hands .

“The storyline of Storm is not very complicated, but I wanted to follow it in a very nuanced way, explains the filmmaker during an interview granted to The Press. As we were coming out of two years of pandemic, during which I saw my teenage daughter transform and be overcome by an inner rage, I transposed this kind of lack into the character of Charlie, the young heroine. I really got my hands dirty and reworked the script scene by scene. I wanted there to be spectacle like in my other films, but it was also important to me to enter into the intimacy of the characters, to make the silences speak. »

Avoid pathos

Storm recounts the journey of Zoé over fifteen years, a young girl born in her parents’ stud farm, who grew up surrounded by horses with only one dream: to become a jockey like her father. A filly named Storm, born almost at the same time as her, will however thwart her plans by accidentally knocking over the young rider. Who will keep serious consequences. We will thus follow the latter at three different stages of her young life.

Pio Marmaï, who accompanied the Quebec filmmaker during his visit to the Cinemania festival, where Storm was presented at the closing evening, very much appreciated this opportunity, rarer for French actors, to slip into a character where the intimate rubs shoulders with the physical and sporting aspect. The actor also had to undergo significant preparation in order to be credible as a jockey on the screen. Christian Duguay’s way of doing things, very North American, also appealed to him.

“No, but this guy, he does everything. I’ve never seen that ! he exclaims. Watching him work is very impressive. I didn’t know the equestrian world at all, but I was given the chance to work with the best. And then, on a film like this, you go through a lot of emotional stages, because the shooting days are very different from one to the next. You can shoot a big, intimate, very emotional scene one day and shoot a racing scene the next. It was very exciting. »

With Mélanie Laurent, whom he knew, but with whom he had never worked before, Pio Marmaï forms a film couple which, in the eyes of the filmmaker, is obvious.

“I didn’t have to have 25 actors read the script,” emphasizes Christian Duguay. I was already very admiring of Mélanie’s work and she quickly gave me her agreement to play Zoé’s mother. For the character of the father, we wanted someone modest, earthy, with an inner strength that translates into the game with subtlety. Pio and Mélanie, it came quite naturally. I had in front of me two actors who allowed themselves to let go, and who allowed me, me, to enter this family nucleus. »

A symbiosis

When he evokes this moment when a symbiosis is established between actors and himself during the filming of a scene, the filmmaker is carried away and moved.

“That actors allow me, as a director, to enter this zone, to be able to dance with them, to take the spectator into this intimacy, I tell myself that my 35-year career has been able to serve to that,” he adds.

Working mainly in Europe for years, Christian Duguay still insists that his projects be developed in co-production with Quebec.

“It’s been happening mainly in France for me for 10 years because the reception of Jappeloup changed the game a bit there. It also corresponds to the cinema that I feel like making and that I try to make in Quebec, but it’s not easy here. There, I am pampered and I have access to great projects. »

With Stormwhich will be released simultaneously in Quebec and France, Christian Duguay also hopes to give people back a taste for cinema on the big screen.

“It took us three years to make this feature film. We tweaked it to bring viewers back into the theatres. Because it matters. People discovered that they could see great movies at home during the pandemic, but now they are rediscovering, I believe, the pleasure of indoor cinema. This collective experience cannot be replaced. »

Storm hits theaters December 21.