EnglishMovies - Retirement home : Interview with Thomas Gilou
By Mulder, 20 december 2021
Maison de retraite is a French film directed by Thomas Gilou, which will be released on February 16. The cast includes Kev Adams, Gérard Depardieu, Daniel Prevost, Mylène Demongeot and Jean Luc Bideau.
Q: It was your meeting with Kev Adams that led to this project.
Thomas Gilou: Yes, I wanted to work with him for a while. I had offered him the lead role in a script but the film could not be made for the moment. We had met on this occasion and the current passed well between us. It was he who called me to talk about Maison de retraite and told me that he wanted me to direct it. While being surprised and flattered at first, I then listened to the way they saw things, with Catherine Diament, his co-author. We quickly agreed, we set shooting dates for January 2020, we worked on the casting and we launched the adventure. I say "adventure" because at that time, the financing of the film was not at all complete. Kev and his company My Family had the courage to really start the project without a net... I can tell you that taking this risk with so much will and dynamism is extremely rare in the cinema!
Q: Yes, except that during the winter of 2020 an infamous virus came and spoiled the party...
Thomas Gilou: As soon as we were preparing the film, we started to hear worrying noises but we didn't really know what it was... In March, while we were in the middle of shooting, we were forced to stop abruptly with the first lockdown... It was a moment of total vagueness, we had absolutely no idea when, or even if, we could resume. Each one isolated himself at home, Mylène Demongeot was very seriously ill with Covid but we all ended up meeting again at the end of spring to finish the adventure. We were also one of the first shootings to be able to resume, under very strict sanitary conditions, of course. It was strange because we were both anxious but also very happy to be alive, together... I remember it as a moment of pure euphoria.
Q: You were talking about the casting of the film: it's thanks to you that this group of "senior" actors was able to join the project, notably Gérard Depardieu...
Thomas Gilou: I worked with Gérard 25 years ago on Mmichou d'Auber, for which I allowed him to rediscover his roots in Berry. We have always kept a link and I had him shoot again in Marseille, the first French series on Netflix with Benoit Magimel. Gérard does things by passion: he sniffs around and if he doesn't feel like it, he passes! For Maison de Retraite, he was immediately on board.
Q: Around him: Daniel Prévost, Mylène Demongeot, Marthe Villalonga, Liliane Rovère, Firmine Richard and Jean-Luc Bideau.
Thomas Gilou: Daniel played in La verite si je mens 2, which is in my opinion one of his greatest roles in cinema with Veber's Le diner de con. Over time, we have stayed in touch, even developing a relationship that goes beyond the cinema. With Daniel, we talk about life, books (he is a great author himself) or Spain which is one of his passions! I really wanted him to join us and I am happy that he accepted. The same goes for Liliane, whom I have known for a long time through other means. For the role of the former literature teacher, I thought that Mylène Demongeot would be perfect. She is an excellent actress and I must say that she represents all my youth as a spectator. I even admit that I owe her my first teenage emotions. With Firmine, we had often crossed paths and talked about possible projects. The role of the film was written for her by Catherine and Kev. As for Jean-Luc, he is someone I adore, with whom I shot my first short film at a time when he embodied for me all those films that had given me a taste for cinema. Alain Tanner's films, such as La salamandre, were stories of reality with a real romantic dimension. By proposing Maison de retraite to him, I had the impression of coming full circle with him and, (beyond our common passion for Switzerland and the theater), of finally being able to have him star in one of my feature films. Finally, Marthe: with Un éléphant ça trompe énormément and Nous irons tous au paradis she embodies, in my eyes, the buddy films that also inspired La vérité si je mens. It was therefore natural for her to join us, especially since Kev likes her a lot. Shooting with these wonderful actors was a real privilege, but I can say the same about Antoine Duléry who plays the director of the retirement home. I was delighted to offer him a counter role, as he usually plays rather nice characters!
Q : What is great about the film is the idea of transmission. It's true in the theme of this young man who is going to learn from the elderly, but it's also true in the different generations of actors that you filmed.
Thomas Gilou: It's something that interests me a lot and besides, these actors (of a "certain age" we would say) accepted the project certainly because I asked them to, but also and above all because they wanted to play with Kev! They were in demand for this confrontation. It's true that this crosses the idea of the film and it was both exciting and motivating in the project: to put two generations face to face and see what could result from it. We also find in this film an idea already crossed in your cinema, that of the character called to become what he had not quite planned to be. Absolutely, this was the case in La vérité si je mens... of course, but also in Michou d'Auber. I like to confront my characters with the contact of others, knowing that this will that this will help them to create their own identity. Society, a different environment, unexpected encounters: all this can change us profoundly.
Synopsis:
In order to avoid prison, Milann, 30 years old, is forced to do 300 hours of community service in a retirement home, Les Mimosas. His first weeks are a real hell! But he is quickly adopted by the pensioners, in particular by a band of 7 inseparable people who teach him, each in their own way, their vision of the life.as the weeks go by, Milann discovers that the establishment takes advantage of the vulnerability of its residents to swindle them. He then decides to organize a great escape, but he is not at the end of his troubles...
Retirement home
A film directed by Thomas Gilou
Produced by Elisa Soussan, Kev Adams
Based on a script by Catherine Diament, Kev Adams
With Kev Adams, Gérard Depardieu, Daniel Prevost, Mylène Demongeot , Jean Luc Bideau, Liliane Rovere, Firmine Richard, Marthe Villalonga, Antoine Duléry, Jarry, Manda Toure, Oussama Kheddam, Omar Mebrouk
Music by Julie Cohen, Claude Morgan
Director of photography :
Editing : Sandro Lavezzi
Production : My Family, The Man, TF1 films production, Adams Family production
Distributed by UGC Distribution (France)
Release date : February 16, 2022 (France)
Running time : 97 minutes
(Source: press kit)