Habib, The Great Adventure: This amazing true story inspired this film starring Catherine Deneuve

What is it about? Habib is a young actor who dreams of theater and cinema, but only plays small roles. His family finds it difficult to understand this passion, which does not bring him a single penny. Until the day he got the role of Little Gigolo opposite Catherine Deneuve. This is the beginning of a great adventure, but also the beginning of trouble…

Amazing true story

The film is based on a true story. During a workshop with his students, Benoit Mariage met Bilal, a young aspiring actor of Moroccan origin: “We sympathize, he asks me to lead a film workshop in his neighborhood. And then four years without news.”

“What a surprise when I go to the cinema to see Jacco van Dormael’s Le Tout Nouveau Testament and find Bilal as a young gigolo in Catherine Deneuve’s bed for the duration of the scene. I call to congratulate: ‘Your parents must be proud!'” “You talk,” he replies. he.

““When they asked me what I was going to do on this film, I said I was helping an old lady shop at Carrefour.” The sadness of having to hide this experience from my parents was the starting point of my writing.The Belgian director recalls.

A piece of fiction

On the other hand, the fact that Habib should play the role of St. Francois d’Assisi is pure invention. Benoît Mariage wanted the hero to inhabit something powerful that would confront him with the culture of his origin. Director says: “One of my most beautiful reads was Christian Bobin’s Le Très Bas, an original and moving biography of François d’Ass.”

“The idea that he could passionately portray Francis of Assisi in the theater convinced me. Habib is fascinated by the character. Perhaps as much as I am. A revolutionary figure for our modern world, characterized by the greed to have so little joy. He, the great precursor of happy decay. Inhabited by perfect joy . How, like Habib, not be fascinated?”

A tale of identity

For Benoît Mariage, Habib, The Great Adventure is a fable about identity. The filmmaker wanted to offer the audience the pleasure of an attractive and funny story, but also to raise questions about the content. He specifies: “The reflection offered by the film goes far beyond the context of the Belgian-Moroccan dual culture: why is it so difficult to become what we are?”

“The question is heightened when we are separated by the different backgrounds that make us up, as in the case of Habib, an intellectual actor dedicated to modernity, from a traditional family.” The great human adventure that the title evokes is that we should not travel. 40,000 km to go to the moon, it is a much more difficult adventure to overcome this distance that separates us from ourselves.

Catherine Deneuve plays… Catherine Deneuve

This is not the first time that Catherine Deneuve plays her role in fiction. This was already the case in the films Anything Can Happen, Absolutely Fabulous and Miss War, where she shared a vocal cameo. His presence in Habib, The Great Adventure is quite small but crucial to the hero’s journey.

Who for Habib?

Benoît Mariage chose Bastien Ughetto, a non-Arab actor, to play the role of Habib. He explains why: “Of course, I started casting for North African boys. But I couldn’t find any. So I called my casting director and was very specific: ‘I want this. John Turturro from Barton Fink, the Arabic version, is not difficult, is it? “. It must be said that I had a couple of times with Burton Fink, serious man and Inside Llewyn Davis of the Coen brothers. Three films in which the comic tension rests on the constant mental grip of their protagonists.”

“Two months later, he sends me an email with a photo of Bastien: ‘I met him by chance, he looks a bit Turturo, but he’s not Arab.’ I said to myself: ‘But he is!’ .Bastien has such a face Buster Keaton. His apparent restlessness causes the Kulesov effect. He does nothing, or very little, but the emotion that is at stake on the stage suddenly fills his gaze. The film owes a lot to him. In addition to his talent, Bastien is a generous, invested and loyal guy. In short, it is a great happiness for the director.”