manifesto ing

GIFFONI50 - 18.29 AUGUST / 26-30 DECEMBER

Sections & Films

MAN UP!

Category: Edition 2020

Synopsis
Tom, a shy and sensitive teenager, is about to enter a new high school. To help him integrate, he can count on the advice of Leo, his older brother and true mentor. Leo will pledge to make Tom a real man, but his omnipresence will quickly turn into a toxic influence. Tom will have to fight to free himself from Leo's grip and find his own way...

Original Title UN VRAI BONHOMME
Category Official Competition
Section Generator +13
Tipology Feature Film
Duration 88'
Production Year 2019
Nationality France
Directed by Benjamin Parent
Screenplay Benjamin Parent, Théo Courtial
Based on an original idea by Benjamin Parent, Victor Rodenbach, Tristan Schulmann
Director of photography Pierre Cottereau
Editor Béatrice Herminie
Sound Sabrina Calmels
Music Pierre Lefeuvre (Saycet)
Main cast Thomas Guy
Benjamin Voisin
Isabelle Carré
Laurent Lucas
Nils Othenin Girard
Tasnim Jamlaoui
Guillaume Arnault
Mohamed Seddiki
Produced by Caroline Adrian

regista Benjamin ParentBENJAMIN PARENT
Graduated in cinema, Benjamin Parent began his career in 1998 at Partizan Midi Minuit as a post-production assistant. In 2006, he became a copywriter for the La Chose advertising agency. In the same period he met Thomas VDB with whom he wrote the comic show En Rock & en Roll and the suite Presque Célèbre in 2011. In 2010 he left advertising to work as a director for Arno Moria and his company Les Télécréateurs (now Insurrection). He collaborated with Riad Sattouf on the two seasons of the online series MES COLOCS, and with Didier Barcelo he wrote the short THE END (with Charlotte Rampling), selected at the Berlin festival in 2012. In 2012, he directed his first short film, CE N’EST PAS UN FILM DE COW-BOYS, on the perception of homosexuality and the impositions of virility among teenagers. The film, selected for the Critics' Week in Cannes and in over 90 festivals worldwide, in 2013 was nominated for the César for best short film. In 2014 Benjamin wrote BULLYBUSTERS with Yoann Gromb and signed the screenplay for MON INCONNUE with Hugo Gélin and Igor Gotesman, released in 2018. In 2015 he created, with Joris Morio, the teen series LES GRANDS. In 2017, he developed the original VIS-À-VIS script, written in collaboration with Régis Roinsard for Super 8. In the same year he was selected by the Emergences program and the Arcs Film Festival Coproduction Village to create the screenplay for his first feature film, MAN UP!, released in France in January 2020.

Director's statement
"I have not lost my brother, I am the oldest, however, in some ways, and from a different perspective, the film talks about my family. Together with adolescence, my family is one of the main driving forces behind my work. What interests me is adolescence and more precisely mine, which undoubtedly represents a restorative desire to rewrite history. I like to explore what I went through. Certainly the language changes - the teenagers of today no longer have the same codes or expressions I had when I was their age - but the themes remain: How do you build your identity when you are a boy? What man do you want to be and, moreover, what does it mean to be a man today? This is a theme that obsesses me. Besides, and although more instinctively, my short film already dealt with this. By wondering about the emotion he felt at the vision of Brokeback Mountains, I understood that Vincent, my hero, questions more about his masculinity than about his relationship with homosexuality. I wanted to delve into this theme and I read a lot of books on it, including The Myth of Manhood by Olivia Gazalé, a remarkable book that surely influenced the writing of the film. It’s not about doing sociology - I’m a filmmaker - but I want to defend a point of view on our times. And it's great that he (Tom n.d.t) finds his own way by choosing to embrace his sensitivity instead of sticking to the representations or conventions he has in front of him. It’s painful but it’s essential. And that’s the only way, in my view, to end inequality and end violence against women and men. Change can only take place through this repositioning of men in society. It is time to think about how to break the macho factory, to break the mold and think about raising boys differently by considering new masculinities. It is necessary to question the characters of men and women in cinema, their representation. Now is the time, society is ready and so are some men".

 

production
Delante Productions
(France)
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international distribution
festival contact
Indie Sales
(France)
www.indiesales.eu