2015 Story of a Production : Alter Ego – l'atelier documentaire Story of a Production : Alter Ego – l'atelier documentaire
– What is producing a film?
– You mean: making money by making a film?
– In any case making a living, and being in agreement with their forms.
We met almost ten years ago at Sunny Side in La Rochelle, a little lost in the aisles of the (super)market... Cécile Lestrade was beginning her career as producer at Alter Ego, a company set up by Simon Leclère, who was its producer and who had also directed his first films there. Fabrice Marache and Raphaël Pillosio, under the patronage of Jacques Lavergne, created a production company with a cooperative structure, l’atelier documentaire.
Our two companies have some things in common: they are young production structures rooted in the provinces – Alter ego in Orléans, l’atelier documentaire in Bordeaux. Their production philosophy is resolutely oriented to creativity. And one major difference: l’atelier documentaire is made up of two producer/directors whereas Alter ego is driven by a producer. Over the last ten years, we have grown together, learning our craft little by little as producers without having experienced the boom years of creative television documentary production when it was possible, so it is said, to work with Arte, France Télévisions or Canal+! Ten years ago, our elders in the profession were still telling us: produce your first films in any way you can, then they’ll be noticed by festivals and the TV companies will come knocking. Today we are still producing as we can films which are shown practically everywhere… except on the major television channels! Our strength was perhaps to have understood that this period was over and we had to find another way of working. Our companies, relationships with the creators we were producing, money, everything had to be organised differently. We had to work in depth on the writing of our films, to explore other modes of production, work with local broadcasters, try our hand at producing shorts and long films. As regulars at the États généraux, we are particularly happy to come and share these experiences at Lussas by showing two films from our respective catalogues, The Unhurried Man and Hana’s Spring.
The happiness of having participated in the existence of these films is sufficient cause for our daily joy. However should the bizarre idea cross the mind of a commissioning editor of coproducing or prepurchasing a film by Matthieu Chatellier (named LaScam’s Documentary of the Year), Stefano Savona (Grand Prize at Cinéma du Réel) or Nathalie Marcault: here is Cécile’s number: 02 38 80 79 44. For those who might be interested in future films by Mehran Tamadon (Grand Prize at Cinéma du réel), Bijan Anquetil (FID Grand Prize) or by Jeanne Delafosse and Camille Plagnet, who won the prestigious Black-Headed Python award, the contact is 09 51 35 28 08…
En présence de Cécile Lestrade, Fabrice Marache et Raphaël Pillosio