Like “Django”, “In the shadow of girls” is also about music. For Etienne Comar, cinema and music are intimately linked. A few years ago, following the death of his father, he sang in an amateur rock band. Writing song lyrics and then performing them has been a powerful emotional discovery, a liberating experience on an intimate and creative level. It was after this that he began to write screenplays, then to direct. Hence the desire to make a film that shows how much singing can be a release. And what better than a prison to express the metaphor of this liberation.
Because “In the shadow of girls” tells the story of Luc, a renowned opera singer. In the midst of a personal crisis, he agrees to animate a singing workshop in a detention center for women. He quickly finds himself confronted with the difficult temperaments of the inmates.
Between good conscience and personal quest, Luc will then try to offer these women a semblance of freedom.
It is Alex Lutz who interprets the role of Luc. The actor is dubbed by the counter-tenor Maximin Richard, but he had to adopt his gestures perfectly, this way of singing and breathing so particular. To make Luc’s song more painful and less perfect, Etienne Comar asked Maximin Richard to sing a tone above of his usual vocal range.