Éric Le Lann à la trompette
Valérie Stroh
1993 - 100 min - 35 mm - Couleur - France

This film is the story of a meeting between a composer and jazz musician, Eric Le Lann and a film maker and actor, Valérie Stroh. After their first interviews in Paris, Valérie Stroh followed Eric Le Lann on an African tour. During the tour, we see the musician meet African percussionnists, we see him at rehearsals and in concert, we follow him during his daytime walks and we also listen in to the late-night conversations between the two protagonists. The film maker is both behind and in front of the camera : she invites the musician to talk about himself, she listens to his story but she also agrees to answer his questions.
By going beyond the telling of the story of a virtuoso trumpeter, a "romantic and contemporary Fitzgeraldian character both engaging and mysterious" and with whom the young people who fill the concert halls identify themselves, and through the themes it exposes (boredom, emptiness and the search for one's roots), this film portrait is a duet, a true reflection of a generation.