Prime-Video - Clara Luciani : this is how it starts, a documentary in her image

By Sophie Janinet, 06 february 2023

On February 8, 2023, Clara Luciani : ça commence comme ça, a documentary on the singer's meteoric rise, will be released on Amazon Prime. A simple and sincere testimony, just like her.

From Martigues to Paris, the singer Clara Luciani let Philipe Lézin put his camera on two years of her life, with a certain reserve but a lot of honesty. The result is an 89-minute documentary that witnesses the incredible acceleration of her career. Together, the director and the artist lightly unravel the thread of a story that balances intimacy and light, with a touch of modesty.

Acclaimed by the public and the critics, Clara Luciani has remained rather discreet until now. This is the first time that she retraces the events that led her to success, from her beginnings with the group La Femme to the explosion of 'La Grenade', through her collaboration with Ambroise Willaume. The musical duo looks back on her successes and failures, and appears several times in the middle of the conception of the melodies that we all know now, like the song 'Respire encore' or 'Le reste'.

From his childhood to today, through the recording of the album Coeur, his concert at the Accor Arena and of course, his triumph at the Victoires de la musique 2022, there is nothing racy in what this film shows. And that's what makes it so refreshing. It offers the viewer slices of life of the singer and her team, without overacting or dramatization. Clara Luciani is however an artist on the edge of her skin, and reveals here a soft melancholy, without glitter or glazes, by succeeding in the bet to sound right. 

By turning away from the hackneyed fantasy of the flayed star in constant search of extremes, she remains faithful to her initial intention. What I would like," she says in her introduction, "is for it to be a documentary that gives hope. That we say to ourselves 'oh yeah, it wasn't won. It was not won but she did it, we can do it too.

What we tell ourselves above all, is that Clara Luciani is doing good, and that her mark in the French musical landscape is also just 'starting like that'.

Biography:
Clara Luciani comes from a Corsican family and grew up in Septèmes-les-Vallons, a suburb of Marseille. Before her career in music, she studied art history and worked at various jobs, including pizza maker, babysitter, Zara saleswoman and ESL teacher. In 2011, she met the group La Femme, of which she became, for a time, one of the singers. She sang two songs on the album Psycho Tropical Berlin, released in 2013. After leaving the group, she forms the duo Hologram with Maxime Sokolinski. In 2015-2016, Luciani accompanied the singer Raphael on stage for his Somnambules tour. In 2017, she performed with Benjamin Biolay and released her first EP, Monstre d'amour, recorded with Benjamin Lebeau (The Shoes) and Ambroise Willaume (Revolver), which received critical acclaim. On April 6, 2018, Luciani released her first studio album, Sainte-Victoire, which was well received by the press. The following winter, she toured Australia, performing at the So Frenchy So Chic festival series in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. She released a second album, Coeur, in 2021. Luciani claims Françoise Hardy, Serge Gainsbourg, Nico, Michel Legrand and Paul McCartney as influences.

Discography:
April 6, 2018: Sainte-Victoire (Label: Initial Artist Services)
June 11, 2021 : Cœur (Label: Romance Musique)

Written by Sophie Janinet