Sex, drugs and theatrical passion. In Nanterre in the 1980s, a theater radiated throughout Europe: The Almond Trees directed by Patrice Chéreau. The director had set up a demanding and renowned school. Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi never hid what she owed at that time. It was there that she made her remarkable debut as Sofia, the childhood sweetheart of Platonov, the play by Chekhov that Chéreau simultaneously adapted for the cinema. It was also there that she had an intense and tumultuous love affair with one of her comrades. In The Almond Treesher name is Stella and he is Etienne. Nadia Tereszkiewiczthe revelation of the film, and Sofiane Bennacer, dark as one could wish, embody this vibrant cinema couple.
“The Almond Trees is not a biopic”, warns the director of the film Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi. It is nevertheless a story whose protagonists are identifiable (Louis Garrel as Patrice Chéreau or Clara Bretheau who is very reminiscent of Eva Ionesco), in identifiable places (the Amandiers reconstituted in Créteil because the Nanterre theater was under construction), against the background of the concerns of the time: the threat of AIDS which is beginning to wreak havoc, the rails of cocaine which rival the doses of heroin).
No one should be angry
“These are periods of my life that we took up with my co-screenwriters Noémie Lvovsky and Agnès de Sacy to make fiction out of them, underlines Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, because only fiction can tear memories away from nostalgia. Memories whose reconstruction, glaringly true, will not only make people happy, as we can imagine. “Some will be happy or reassured, others disappointed or embarrassed, concedes Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi. But the love I have for my characters means that no one should be angry or feel hurt. »
From Patrice Chéreau, physically different and yet convincing in the guise of Louis Garrel, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi does not hide anything from the sometimes hurtful authority: “He was not a cool person, she admits. He was a workaholic who jostled us, who pushed us to our limits, but he loved actors. “There is also Pierre Romans, the director of the school, less known than Chéreau because he died very early, in 1990, to whom Micha Lescot brings a beautiful incarnation.
Three old school friends
Alongside them in the role of adults, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi turns three of her former school friends, less known than Vincent Perez, Thibault de Montalembert, Bruno Todeschini, Marianne Denicourt or Agnès Jaoui, but who remain essential to her eyes: Isabelle Renauld, Bernard Nissille and Franck Demules, whose wife died of AIDS. “They are important actors for me, explains the director. Thirty-five years later, we all continue to be part of the lives of others. »