They are barely out of adolescence. Louise and Sofia, heroine of Midwives of Léa Fehner, are passionate about the profession they have chosen. The director of Only one takes and the others will follow And The Ogres chose fiction to reveal the vagaries of a little-known profession, which confronts very young women with enormous responsibilities. TV movie originally broadcast in April on Arte, Midwives is the subject of a theatrical release.
Between the magic of births and the anxiety of making mistakes, the duo knows no respite in an overloaded service, enough to make them doubt their skills. Beginners Khadija Kouyaté and Héloïse Janjaud, students of the Paris Conservatory, bring great freshness and immense talent to these two characters rooted in reality.
A lot of writing
“It’s a complex tingling that I tried to render as well as possible,” explains the filmmaker. A precise machinery, constantly jostled by the appearance of the miracle: the birth of a child. Léa Fehner began by immersing herself in hospital services to discover the workings of the establishment. She then relied on the stories of midwives to develop her scenario with the complicity of Catherine Paillé. Writing and improvisation workshops with the performers were also set up to give substance to the characters. They learned the professional gestures of their profession to stick as closely as possible to the reality of protagonists created from their personality.
This process gives the impression of being part of this troop of brave caregivers trying to do the best for their patients in a hospital sorely lacking in resources. ” Midwives is also a film about a certain youth of today, about its resilience and its idealism”, specifies Léa Fehner. Optimism pokes its nose at the heart of chaos in this militant work that never falls into misery.
great humanity
We vibrate in front of a high-risk childbirth. We smile at the joy of the new parents. We cry when things go wrong. Above all, the viewer feels a powerful empathy for these women and men whose doubts and victories leave a lasting mark. There is a lot of humanity in the cinema of Léa Fehner, a director as powerful as she is delicate.