Meet Gael García Bernal

PostED ON OCTOBER 18 AT 3PM

Copyright Institut Lumière / Charlotte Pavard

 I asked him if he was going to make another film and I shook his hand!” Rémi, 14, will remember his first Lumière festival for a long time.

Accompanied by his teachers and classmates from Jean Rostand Middle School in Craponne, the young man had the opportunity to ask a few questions and exchange a few words with actor-director Gael García Bernal, guest of honor of the festival. The Mexican filmmaker had come to the Institut Lumière to present his film, "Chicuarotes," screened at the last Cannes Film Festival, a work about the daily life of two teenagers in a working-class district of Mexico City. The feature film caught the attention of Rémi, a 9th grader: "I liked the quality of the film, the actors were great; there was fighting, and according to what we heard from the director, the story reflects reality in Mexico.”
During the day, the twenty-four middle schoolers had been able to see People of the Slum by Bong Joon-Ho and short films by Emile Cohl. The screenings were as part of the Lumière project, conducted with this establishment for the last two years: "We launched this class called ‘Lumière’ with colleagues Rachel Gardant Maupetit and Karine Wannyn, respectively a French teacher and a documentalist. The aim is to awaken students' curiosity about programming, to take them to see films they are not used to seeing and to introduce them to cinema techniques," explained Thierry Barnaud, professor of mathematics at Jean Rostand Middle School. It’s the perfect equation to delight the hearts of the young people of Craponne.

Laura Lépine