At the end of a public screening of Affected, a man approached Alexandra Lamy: “I’m going to tell you something extremely difficult. Sometimes I have been a bit harsh with my wife. She was taken aback: “What do you mean, a little harsh? “I happened to push her. To slap her. To have seen this film upset me. I did not realize, in fact, that it is violent. »
Alexandra Lamy remembers watching this spectator turn on his heels and walk away, visibly upset. “I’m not saying that I’m going to change the aggressors, but my film may open up reflections, she says. In the patriarchal system, we were educated in sentences like: “If your wife talks too much, you can stick one to her, huh, it doesn’t really matter.” Today, people realize that it is wrong, that a physical gesture has terrible repercussions. »
Affected, broadcast this Thursday, from 9:10 p.m., on TF1, follows the journeys of three women victims of sexual and gender-based violence, embodied by Mélanie Doutey, Claudia Tagbo and Chloé Jouannet. They meet during a group therapy around the practice of fencing.
“In a first realization, we put all our guts”
The TV movie, crowned Sunday at the La Rochelle TV Fiction Festival, is adapted from the comic strip of the same title, signed by Quentin Zuitton. Alexandra Lamy says she was “overwhelmed” by this reading. When producer Philippe Boëffard offered her the project, she wanted to know what role he imagined her in. He replied that he was actually thinking of her to make it happen. “I had a little shock”, admits the one that the public discovered twenty years ago as Chouchou in A boy a girl. But, titillated for several years at the idea of going behind the camera, she did not hesitate for long: “I told myself that it was the right subject, because, generally, in a first realization, we put all his guts. »
Alexandra Lamy values her feminist commitment. Support from La Maison des femmes, she is active in helping victims of violence. “During the first confinement, I worked a lot with the gendarmerie in order to pass on, via local shops, messages to women suffering from domestic violence”, she explains.
“When we make a fiction on this subject, we have a responsibility”
An involvement similar to that of Andréa Bescond, whose To insanity, a TV movie on the influence of the couple, was recently broadcast on M6. “We know each other, we have often seen each other in demonstrations, we work with associations. I got very close to her two years ago, specifies Alexandra Lamy. She was my first choice for the role of the therapist. I knew she was going to find the right words for this character, bring authenticity. When you make a fiction on this subject, you have a responsibility. I didn’t want to be off the mark or be blamed for the slightest sentence. »
The director hopes, “without any pretension”, to make things happen. For several months, she shows Affected in high schools or in the premises of various associations. She also plans to travel around France in a minibus to “do prevention with young people”. “This film is an educational support. There are associations who tell us: “We have had victims who have been able to express things when we have been working with them for months and they do not speak. There, suddenly, seeing Affectedthey say: “I’m like Tamara, I scarify myself”. It’s easier to say that we find ourselves in such and such a character than to tell what we live.
“Reconstruction is possible”
Some Q&A sessions following public screenings easily last over an hour. “Women thank us, say it gives them hope, even if I don’t like that word,” says Alexandra Lamy. Today, speech is freed up, it’s great, but can we rebuild ourselves? I wanted to show that yes, it is possible. If one day you push a door, there will be people who will be there to help you, to accompany you. »
She also notices that, systematically, during meetings with the public, “the first people who speak are men. She admits she fears they’ll think it’s a “women’s film.” She finds that their reactions are quite different.
“I’m not saying that all men are bastards, I’m not suing them, so I think it feels good too, she analyzes. The subject speaks personally to some because there are victims of touching and violence among men. Others are moved by the sisterhood or the rebuilding process. Some tell us that they did not realize what it was like to be abused and that it takes time to recover. I’m not saying it’s an extraordinary film, but the discussions they arouse are long. It’s your turn to be affected and to talk about it.