Comedy at PMA? It’s La Graine’s crazy bet on Prime Video

This is from a magazine article New York Times, which chronicles the many hurdles of PMA, which gave Eloise Lange, Connasse’s co-creator, the idea for her third film. In La Graine, a couple of women, Ines and Lucy, travel to Belgium in hopes of finding the perfect donor to give birth to a child.

The director follows the journey of his two protagonists, who are stressed by more absurd situations than each other, and chooses to engage the subject in the prism of comedy. “I’m a big believer in laughing at the oddsEloïse Lang explains to AlloCiné.

Lightness makes dramatic subject matter more accessible to the general public, conveying messages in a different way..”

Developing such a project was an obstacle. While writing the script, the filmmaker, along with his co-writer Pauline Maura, posed as a fake lesbian couple to understand the difficulties couples and single women face on the road.

Then, as soon as the writing was finished, we had to convince ourselves: “This is not an easy subject and all films are prototypes. When manufacturers and financiers can’t hold onto what they know, it’s hard.”

At the heart of this comedy is a surprising duo: Marie Papillon, a young comedian who finds here her first major film role, and Stacey Martin, a famous actress used to much darker projects. First, the pressure was real: “I wanted to be fair but also strike the right balance to highlight the issue I want to see.”

For another, the challenge was dealing with comedy: “I like not to repeat myself in the roles I choose. What I like here is the slightly English humor, both absurd and good-natured. I’m not funny in life, I’m good in spite of myself, so I learned a lot in front of Marie, who has an accurate sense of timing..”

In the course of this crazy adventure, the duo quickly becomes a trio, completed by Francois Damien. He plays Mr. Peters, a clinician tasked with collecting donated sperm. “When I read that there was a shortage, that there were salesmen going to universities to find “educated sperm,” I imagined a character that seemed obvious to me.“- says the director.

The Belgian actor, as usual, is irresistible, but also manages to portray a tender and attractive character.

La Graine features, in one of the first French comedies, a lesbian couple that carefully avoids the usual clichés and traps. Gone are the days of Jossian Balasco’s Gazon Maudit.

“I didn’t want heroines who were hindered by their sexual orientationEloise Lang claims. I wanted this pair to be as universal as possible.“

Interview by Thomas Desroches, Paris, April 17, 2023.

Seed is available on Prime Video.