Director since 2003, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi has shown and renewed her talent in her very personal films. The Almond Trees, which comes out on Wednesday, November 16, conveys the happiness of being at the right time in the right place. The actors, including Louis Garrel as Patrice Chéreau and Micha Lescot as Pierre Romans, co-creators of the École des Amandiers, transmit the demands of art to resplendent young actors and actresses in an eloquent reconstruction of the 80s.
In the mid-1980s, Stella, Etienne, Adèle and others became students at the age of 20 in the acting school that Patrice Chéreau and Pierre Romans had just created at the Théâtre des Amandiers in Nanterre. Passionate, they discover the game, love but also the tragedy of life.
Beyond the origin of Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi’s vocation as an actress, which the film relates through the character of Stella, The Almond Trees transmits the passion of actresses and actors for their profession. An investment that occupies their whole life, from morning to night. The director reconstructs these 80s, with accuracy, but without nostalgia. A setting that counts for a lot in the digressions that nourish the film and the events that tragically dot the era.
Music also plays a large part in the success of almond trees. The air of the time feels in the scoria of a carelessness soon gone, overtaken by AIDS and the grip of heroin on a whole youth. An addiction that Etienne, Stella’s young lover, will fall victim to. Sofiane Bennacer who interprets him is remarkably accurate, sure of himself and fragile at the same time in his relationship to drugs.
But it’s the energy that dominates, especially in the first part where the enthusiasm and investment of young people explode, convinced of having found their way. That of a personal and assumed achievement. This will be the case for Stella/Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi. Very fair in its realization and its interpretation, (in particular Nadia Tereszkiewicz in Stella), solar film, The Almond Trees takes us behind the mirror of a vocation, as if he were confiding a secret to us.
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Gender : Drama
Director: Valeria Bruni Tedeschi
Actors: Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Sofiane Bennacer, Louis Garrel, Micha Lescot, Clara Bretheau
Country : France
Duration : 2h06
Exit : November 16, 2022
Distributer : Ad Vitam
Summary: In the 80s, Stella, Etienne, Adèle and the whole troupe were twenty years old. They pass the entrance examination for the famous school created by Patrice Chéreau and Pierre Romans at the Amandiers theater in Nanterre. Launched at full speed in life, passion, play, love, together they will live the turning point of their lives but also their first great tragedies.