meeting with the film crew

After The glory of my father and My Mother’s Castle, it is the turn of the 3rd volume of Marcel Pagnol’s childhood memories to be adapted for the cinema. The decor remains the same. The Massif de l’Étoile, located north of Marseille, where the young Pagnol spent his summer holidays with his family. A place where the film crew returned on the occasion of the presentation of the feature film to the inhabitants of the region.

“It’s beautiful”, marvels the actor Guillaume de Tonquédec, who interprets the father of Marcel Pagnol, by finding the hills of Garlaban. Hills where Pagnol, as a child, played with his friend Lili des Bellons. The Time of Secrets, published in 1960, recounts in particular the first love affairs of the young Pagnol.

We are in July 1905, the future playwright and filmmaker is ten years old. He has just completed his primary studies and is about to enter sixth grade. But first, it’s time for the big vacation. The city child rediscovers nature, the great outdoors and especially his friend Lili, always ready to share new adventures at the age when carelessness gives way to secrets.

Young Marcel has grown up. But he can always count on Augustine, his beloved mother. “She is a very loving mother who is absolutely overwhelmed to see her children grow up, to see her eldest fall into this somewhat complicated age that is adolescence”, says Mélanie Doutey who plays Augustine. By gaining in maturity, the young Marcel also realizes that adults are not so irreproachable. He notices in particular that his father has a weakness for the baker. “He begins to discover that his parents have secrets and that they too are not perfect”, reports Guillaume de Tonquédec.

More than a century later, Pagnol’s vacation memories are still very much alive. “These are friendly, human and loving relationships that are exactly the same as today. That’s why Pagnol does not age”explains the director of the film Christophe Barratier. “Apart from the costumes and certain details, the plot of this story is quite close to what we can live today”, adds Baptiste Negrel who plays Lili.

If the peasant friend is embodied by a young actor from Aubagne, Leo Campion who plays the young Marcel is not a child of the region. But he took his role very seriously. “It’s still a big responsibility because he’s an iconic character in French and Southern literature,” recognizes this young actor. A filmmaker and author effectively forever associated with Provence.

The film will also be in cinemas in Bouches-du-Rhône from Wednesday March 16, a week before its national release on Wednesday March 23.