The Drift of the Continents (South): Italian comedy with Isabel Carre

The Drift of the Continents (South): Italian comedy with Isabel Carre

In The Drift of the Continents (South), Lionel Bayer signs Italian comedy as a form of homage to these often political comedies of the 60s and 70s. A meeting with its director and duo Isabel Carré and Theodore Pellerin.

What is it about?

Nathalie Adler is in the EU mission in Sicily. He is particularly responsible for organizing the next visit of Macron and Merkel to the migrant camp. A presence with high symbolic value to show that everything is under control. But who wants to believe a European family on the verge of a nervous breakdown? Perhaps not Albert, Nathalie’s son, an activist committed to an NGO, who arrives without warning after years of breaking up with her. Their union will be more explosive than this diplomatic trip…

Original comedy about Europe

With Continental Drift (South), presented this year at Cannes Directors’ Monday, Lionel Bayer signs Italian comedy as a form of homage to the often political comedies of the 60s and 70s. We laugh at the bureaucratic language and the Swiss filmmaker looks at the issue of migrants to better highlight the contradictions of each of them on the subject.

This comedy amazes with its mix of humor and drama. is it a comedy “Copyright comedy”? As its director and screenwriter Lionel Bayer tells us on our mic, “The only thing that really lends itself to comedy is scary stuff! The situation must be really desperate to be cleverly mocked.“. and add: “Laughter is a true form of intelligence. (…) Betting on humor, I tell myself that I could talk to people a little differently. Humor allows you to talk to people in a more sensitive place.

Humor allows you to talk to people in a more sensitive place

Emphasizing that financing the film was not easy, precisely because of the mix of genres, Lionel Bayer indicates that its subject matter can also be troubling. “The topic of migration is stressful for everyone,” he says, “also, because I believe that sometimes our desire to be serious, or rather the fact that we are too affected by everything, does not mean much. What affected you so much? Let’s try to see what we can do, how this reception works…

Isabel Carré and Theodore Pellerin in Continental Drift (South)

As a European, this is a topic that makes me very suspicious. My family is from Polish immigration. I am a Swiss citizen but I live in France. It’s all about life, I feel European because I come from immigration“, summarizes Lionel Bayer.

We should also specify that this film is the third episode of the “Caustic and Sentimental Tetralogy” crossing the 4 cardinal points of Europe, which aims to say specifically what Europe is today, especially thanks to a more intimate approach.

Europe only works if there is a will

Europe is the person we love to hate and love to say that all our ills come from her as our mother! It’s his fault, we don’t love him enough, or he’s too restrictive, or he does it too much! I thought it would be interesting to say that this Europe is represented by a woman, a lesbian woman, who really is the worst mother ever., continues the filmmaker at our microphone. “As a man, you can blame everything on him! It is his fault and that this Franco-German couple is a woman. Europe only works if there is a will: do we want to be together or not?“, he concludes.

La Dérive des continents (To the South) reunites Isabel Carré and Theodore Pellerin in its cast as mother and daughter reunited after years of separation. The actress is played by Ursina Lard and Tom Villa. This is the first French film of Theodore Pellerin, at the beginning of an already rich career in Canada and the United States (Boy Erased, Genesis, Never Rarely Sometimes…)

This movie has a very unique tone and is incredibly similar to Lionel confides Theodore Pellerin, who met in tandem with his partner Isabelle Carre in Cannes. I recognize who he is in the script and the film, the intelligence, the accuracy, the lines, and the humor. It’s interesting when a director really manages to use signature“.

It’s interesting when a director really manages to use signature

Isabel Carré explains that she was “At first, he touched on the topic of migrants“, recalls that he had”Already made a film in the Calais jungle with Jean-Pierre Amery about ten years ago (The TV movie Mom is Crazy aired in 2005, Editor’s Note.). What I discovered was very shocking. It’s always the same: when you see pictures on TV or read, you can be touched, but still there is something remote. When we go to the place, when we talk to people, when we share our experiences with associations, we feel differently concerned..”

What interested me in Lionel’s statements he continues This time there was an approach to the issue not from the associations, but from the communication of the European authorities, but from the politicians, and mixing it with an intimate issue: towards a mother who has left her son to live with a woman, because this son did not agree with this homosexuality, nor with his ex, and she had to make room for this freedom. I found this intimacy very beautiful in this issue that concerns us all“, he concludes.

Continental Drift (South) is shown this Wednesday, August 24, 2022.

Source: allocine

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