Just Riadh: What true story inspired the movie Under the Stars?

An extraordinary journey

Under the Stars follows the journey of Yezid Ichemrahen, who fell in love with pastry at the age of 14 after growing up in a foster family and hostels.

He studied, in particular, as an apprentice, with the chocolatier Pascal Café – Meilleur Ouvrier de France and World Pastry Champion – pastry chefs Angelo Moussa – World Pastry Champion 2003 and MOF Pastry 2007 – and Philippe Conticin, also at the school. Joel Robuchon. Yezid Ichemrahen won the title of World Frozen Dessert Champion in 2014.

He recounted his journey in two books: A Star Child’s Dream – How Confectionery Saved Her Life and Educationand Create to survive, live not to sink.

Genesis

À la belle étoile was born from the impulse of associate producers Laurence Lascar and Lahoucin Grimich, who discovered Yezid Ichemrahen’s career through an article on the show’s website. Click on it of Mouloud Achour, where Ichemrahen presented his latest book. Lascari and Grimich bought the rights to bring it to the screen. Cédric Ido wrote the screenplay and was supposed to direct the film, but he was busy with another project, leaving the place to Sébastien Toulard.

Then he was hospitalized. He recovered from cancer. “Then I had only one thing in mind: to get out of there to start working on a film. Thanks to this project I had the best rehabilitation to recover. The script was great, it really touched me. “

Just Riyadh

The director returns to Riyad’s casting in the lead role: “I felt a lot of empathy when casting him. He proposed to me in an awkward way. I still don’t know if it was intended or not, but I liked it. I think we were on the same wavelength. As he was. He dictated his text, it was exactly the tone I expected. He didn’t know where to turn, he was very intelligent. He had to play a young person entering the kitchen for the first time. He was a bit clumsy and even the way he addressed his boss was pointless.”

The actor, better known by his influential pseudonym Just Riadh, finds his first major film role with À la belle étoile. We’ve already seen this in Max 30 Days and La Bonne’s behavior. His first casting was outside the norm, for a film by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano: “I liked the training, I realized it was exactly what I wanted to do.” He went to castings for three years, hoping to get the role, and devoted himself to the project. In 2021, on the red carpet at Cannes, she was approached by producer Lahoucin Grimich, who told her about À la belle étoile. “I was convinced that I had to make this movie. The story is crazy and it’s true. Putting the pastry chef in the shoes, training her to be better, it was brilliant.”

learning

For Riyad, the transition from a content creator where he controls everything to an actor was a real challenge that pushed him out of his comfort zone: “This time I was forced, I was given the opportunity to lead, trust and rely on a large team (direction, production, management, etc.). Suddenly I became a small link of the “big channel”. This is what I liked most about the experience: composing together. That’s why cinema It’s magical to me.

For the needs of the film, the actor trained in pastry, but also in ice sculpture. “They sent me to the labs where I learned in the company of other students and enjoyed the atmosphere, the movements, the gestures.”