The cast for the film relating the massacre of Hautefaye

DThey cesarized actors – Arieh Worthalter and Antoine Reinartz – are announced on the poster for the film “Hautefaye”, directed by Vincent Le Port. It is therefore in all modesty that I push the door of the Théâtre de Périgueux (Dordogne) in order to present myself to the cast organized this Monday, April 28 by production. “The team is looking for all roles, no gaming experience is required,” says the announcement. This reassures me a little: if my incarnation of Julius Caesar in the end of year show of the college students of the Bugue had aroused the approval of a dozen Latinist parents in delirium, I must concede that since, my acting career has been put on break.

It is 9 am, the room will open. More than sixty people are ahead of me and behind me, the line continues to lie down. “More than 550 people came,” savor Marlene Popovic, assistant to the casting director. On a side step, I start to scrutinize the applicants. There are young and old, young and old. In short, all the figures that make up a village in Périgord.

“A crime of good people”

I quickly sympathize with two Sarladais retirees, Marie-Claire and Thierry, who came for their celestial granddaughter. “I love cinema but it’s my first casting,” concedes the latter. I ask him about his knowledge of the script but his grandmother cuts: “I’ll explain you, it’s a long story. The teenager insists and ultimately won. I then allow myself a few details, giving myself the air of a local junk historian. I had just listened to the journey an episode of the podcast “Hondelatte tells” returning to the sadly famous massacre of Hautefaye.

Christophe Hondelatte Y Conte “A crime of brave people”, which occurred in 1870. I had to review a few laughs in front of Saint-Front cathedral when the journalist embarks on the imitation of a Perigordin peasant from the 19th century^e century. Rictus quickly erased by the horror of the crime perpetrated. Alain de Monéys, a sympathetic notable thirty, had been lynched and burned alive by a crowd drunk with hatred which accused him of being a spy in the pay of the Prussians. Monday, April 28, we were therefore half a million to want to camp the roles of villagers carried away by anger and thirsty for blood.

100 % périgordin

The rapid genealogical research carried out in my family attest to my 100 % perigordin ancestry for at least seven generations. This corresponds to the time when the story of the novel by Eugène Le Roy takes place “Jacquou the crunch”. It is easier for the children of Dordogne to claim the descendants of a courageous peasant, even fiction, than murderers, however very real, of poor Alain de Monéys.

I finally enter the casting room. In the doorway of the door, I wish good luck to Céleste and reminds her that if by chance, her acting career had to take off, she did not forget the first journalist to have spoken of her. The director of the casting Bahijja El Amrani gives some instructions. I Fear on a thunderous “hello” by forcing (a little bit) my accent, modulating my voice between the Joan de Nadau and Francis Cabrel frequencies. I am handed me a little slate where I register name, first name, telephone number. I am then photographed against a wall, a bit like in the inaugural scene of the film “Usual Suspects”. I try to enter my smile in my beard, the pink complexion of my cheeks-inherited from my peasant grandfather-betraying the fun of finding me here.

Fist camera

Later in the afternoon, I learned good news: I have just won the right to spend a filmed interview! I return to speed at the Théâtre de Périgueux. I meet an acquaintance, Manu, who has just been auditioned. “You will see, they will ask you two or three questions to find out if you are comfortable in front of the camera. »Bahijja El Amrani is waiting for me, a small camcorder in the fist. The questions are linked: “What do you find ignoble in life?” When did you cry for the last time? I try to answer as sincerely as possible.

“What interests us is to have personalities who will be able to give relief to the characters,” depicts the director of the casting. She entrusts me in the process that I seem a little young to embody a lawyer of the Hautefaye trial. Thus ends my cinematographic career. I dreamed of opening the Sarlat film festival, I should be content to cover it for “South West”. Unless a Julius Caesar biopic is in preparation.