14/06/2024 - Thierry Frémont, Serge Papagalli, Fred Testot and Jacques Chambon star in the French actor’s feature-length directorial debut, staged by JPL Productions and Matière Première Productions

Director Gilles Graveleau (left) and actor Thierry Frémont on the set of La Startup

Since 20 May, Gilles Graveleau, an actor notable for his performances in the series and film Kaamelott [+see also:
trailer
film profile], has been shooting his feature-length directorial debut: La Startup. The filmmaker, who cut his teeth with the short film Joss (2019), has assembled a cast including Thierry Frémont (César Award for Most Promising Actor in 1988, seen recently in the series Liaison [+see also:
trailer
series profile]), Serge Papagalli (also appearing in Kaamelott), Fred Testot (All Your Faces [+see also:
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trailer
film profile], Marinette [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Virginie Verrier
film profile]) and Jacques Chambon (glimpsed in Corporate [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Nicolas Silhol
film profile], An Ordinary Mother [+see also:
trailer
film profile], The Path of Excellence [+see also:
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trailer
film profile]).

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The story, written by the director himself, unfolds in a remote village, and follows Bob and Gus, two struggling fifty-somethings who share a flat and are no longer eligible for unemployment benefits. They receive a proposition from the France Travail employment office to create their own company as a last resort in order to extricate themselves from their situation. With only a lack of knowledge and guileless enthusiasm to their name, they gleefully pass through all of the stages involved in starting a business, eventually succeeding despite everything, and shaking the very foundations of the financial and digital system. Because their true pleasures in life lie elsewhere: fishing, picnics and gazing at an English woman bathing in the river.

Produced by Jean-Pierre Lagrange for JPL Productions (which is trying its hand at fiction after having made a big splash in the documentary world, particularly in the 2023 Berlinale Panorama with The Cemetery of Cinema [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Thierno Souleymane Diallo
film profile] by Thierno Souleymane Diallo and in Cineasti del presente at Locarno in 2022 with Fragments from Heaven [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Adnane Baraka) and by Matière Première Productions, La Startup is being co-produced by Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Cinéma. Interestingly, the film amassed €1 million from 40 company directors in the region via an endowment fund. The shoot will take place almost entirely in Yzeron until 3 July, with Emmanuel Thery in charge of the cinematography. The French distribution and international sales are still under negotiation.

(Translated from French)