Raoul (prologue)

Here is a short-film introducing Raoul, one of our two main characters, before he hits the road...

Our project

You already know Bonnie & Clyde and Sailor & Lula but have you heard of Raoul & Annina? These names do sound strange...

Goodbye to Texas, Louisiana, canyons and US marshals. Our heroes sow their wild oats along the roads of France, by train, car or trailer. They ardently run across the forests of the Morvan, the mountains of the Cévennes and the swamps of the Camargue.

Where are they going to ? What are they even doing? Or maybe the question is: what have they done? A detective investigates and reconstructs their story: it all starts with a gunshot, in a trailer, deep in the woods; two youngsters take flight; the lifeless body of a certain Mr. George is missing. So the myth begins: “Raoul et Annina rob some barflies in Decize”; “Raoul & Annina break into a house in Saint-Germain-De-Calberte”; “In the middle of the night, someone pulls a trigger in the Cévennes: was it Raoul & Annina’s fault?”

Our ambition goes as follows: to tell, through a full-length feature film, a great adventure built around the simple story of a couple who is on the run, to render the energy of an exhilarating escape and that of a genuine love story. It is all about escapism.

Well-known cinematographic genres such as road-movie and thriller both convey a sense of fiery vitality. Besides, stylistic codes associated with these genres allow to frame the narration, to endow the story with a double rhythm so that the spectator may sometimes compulsively hold their breath and sometimes let themselves be driven by the unfolding storyline. Our work is structured around this binary rhythm. The project calls upon iconic elements of the thriller such as an investigation, a harrowing atmosphere and introspection while other distinctive features such as the road, the distant horizon and freedom are directly borrowed from numerous road-movies.

Our team is rather small: eight of us will criss-cross the countryside of France for a month, from mid-august until mid-september. The Morvan, Marseille, the Cévennes : we will be received and joined by many other actors. Our project is to direct an authentic road-movie: being ourselves on the road in order to write a film about the road. Our own adventure will give rise to the adventure of Raoul & Annina.

And they will live thanks to you all! To resort to crowdfunding is certainly not insignificant. This adventure will be made possible by the people, you will give rise to their adventure by allowing us to bring them to life.

The Origin

Escapism combines flight and quest: this simple analysis originates our project. We intend to film an adventure, to subvert certain boundaries, to go against the conventional restraint, and to depart from cynicism, to make way for a lyrical tone, for celebration and carelessness. To escape and escapism are both necessary: they exist within ourselves. We are guided by them: the escape is a free motion. It is out there: on the road.

We are hitting the road together! As a matter of fact, this project gathers together several people from various backgrounds and fields: cinema, theater, music and plastic arts. We are thus putting our knowledges and personal worlds in common so that they can interact with each other and inform each other, in a “laboratory” fashion which will allow us to experiment and to create.

The music

Music holds a very important place in this project. As soon as the writing process had begun, we were inspired by the energy and the poetry of soul music (“Gypsy woman” by The Persuasions”, “Simply Beautiful” by Al Green, “Love don’t you go through No Changes On Me” by Sister Sledge…) or Rock (“Blue Hotel” of Chris Isaak is Raoul’s emblematic song) and of Jazz (albums such as Blues in Orbit by Duke Ellington). They were already present during the writing process and they will never cease to inspire us during the shooting and the editing.

Next to these already existing tracks, we are also going to write an original soundtrack which will be produced by Simon Avérous (director and screenwriter), Lucas Palen (Chief Operator) and Arnold Zeilig (sound engineer), with the participation of many other musicians. Thus, the atmosphere of musical creation will complete that of the shooting and it will continue during the post-production phase which will take place in a recording and editing studio, in Paris.

The team

Actors

Nathan Bernat : Nathan started being on the stage at the age of 12 as a member of the company called Enfants de la Comédie (Boulogne-Billancourt, 92). In 2009, he succeeds in the entrance examination for the Théâtre National de Bretagne (TNB) in Rennes where he worked with Stanislas Nordey, François Tanguy, Anto Kouznetsov and Thomas Jolly. After the TNB, he played in Living! staged by Stanislas Nordey in the TNB and in Shakespeare’s Henry VI staged by Thomas Jolly, created in the TNB and scheduled in Festival d’Avignon’s IN during this summer. Nathan also played in Déchirés/Graves directed by Vincent Dieutre.

Anne Duverneuil : Anne started being on the stage at the age of 12 in a company called Enfants de la Comédie (Boulogne-Billancourt, 92). In 2011, she acted in Molière’s Le Mariage Forcé staged by Karin Catala in Festival d’Avignon’s OFF. In 2012, after two years of university-level preparation for the Ecole Normale Supérieure, she is admitted in the 33rd class of Classe Libre des Cours Florent and she works with Jean-Pierre Garnier and Gretel Delattre. Since 2009, Anne acted in 15 films under the direction of Benoît Jacquot, Dominique Ladoge, Alexandre Coffre and Sébastien Lifschitz.

The shooting team

Simon Avérous (director and screenwriter): After two years of university-level preparation for the Ecole Normale Supérieure with a major in Cinema and a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and History of Art, Simon has worked as an assistant to the producer in Michel-Ange by Hervé Briaux. Besides, he directed a few short films (Snitch, Alice, Raoul: Prologue,...) and was assistant, boom operator and soundtrack composer (Projetée and Chien de lisard). Simon also study music in the music academy of the 11th district of Paris: piano in classical music and jazz, music theory and history of music.

Olivier B. Gandrille (screenwriter and artistic collaboration): Before writing and directing films (Lonesome Tonight and Raoul: Prologue), Olivier is a photographer. His photos have been published by Vice and Sooc. His skills as a photographer, a director and a screenwriter were improved by advanced studies in History of Art, Philosophy (three years in university-level preparation for the Ecole Normale Supérieure and currently doing his master’s degree).

Samuel Chochon (setting and illustration)

Lucas Palen (image)

Arnold Zeilig (sound)

Muriel Langlois (producer and continuity person)

Follow our project on Facebook and Twitter : we will keep you posted! You will be able to access a great variety of photos and videos (photos of the reconnaissance, trailers etc.)