Marseille director Robert Guédiguian in the spotlight at Draguignan

The departmental film festival is starting its second edition auspiciously, as it is dedicated to the work of Robert Guédiguian, a filmmaker from Marseille with a rich and committed filmography. Screenings of his cult films such as Marius and Jeannette, The Snows of Kilimanjaro or The Army of Crime it will be offered until Friday 16 December in Fréjus, Toulon, Lorgues, Salernes, Saint-Maximin and Draguignan where it was present for the launch of the festival. Encounter.

How does it feel to have a retrospective in your honor?

It’s always nice to be recognized. But it’s starting to happen to me a lot, which worries me a little (laughs). Aside from new films, I’m often asked to talk about my old features, which is normal, of course… There’s a shared sentiment. A little one hand in front, one hand behind (laughs).

How do you see your career?

First unconsciously and then voluntarily, I wanted to talk, instead of my housekeeper mother and my worker father. They had no right to this word, which doesn’t mean they didn’t have things to say. They are the ones to be congratulated for having managed to make me a responsible and attentive individual who rejects all selfishness. I think this shows in my films.

These values ​​are present in your films. Does cinema have to commit itself to be art?

Cinema that doesn’t commit is not cinema. These are sketches. There are no plans, no images but just a series of more or less stupid things. This non-cinema remains ideological. He drags himself along and carries a vision of the world, of man-woman relationships or of work in spite of himself. Even the worst film subconsciously supports the established order. Unlike committed cinema, which reflects on the most appropriate forms of expressing a point of view and aims to improve this established order.

You said you were a “neighborhood director”. Is it compared to Marseille, where you come from and have you toured many times?

It was ironic (He smiles). I’ve always thought humor was a powerful weapon. When I said it, it was to fight the idea of ​​a regional, Marseillaise or social director. I’m a director, full stop, with no qualifications. In general, this serves to disqualify the works. We say “social director” but never “bourgeois director”. As if the latter were making an absolute great cinema. What’s up.

your next movie, And the party goes onwith Ariane Ascaride, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Gérard Meylan, scheduled for 2023, will have the collapse of the building in rue d’Aubagne as a backdrop.

It’s not a movie about that, it’s about one of the characters. It is a film about the different ways of entering the associative or political world today and about the hesitations that one may have.

>> Draguignan Departmental Film Festival. Until December 16th. Information on the festival’s Facebook page or www.ville-draguignan.fr