Selected in the Geneva International Film Festival’s Highlights section and previously crowned Best Short Format Series at the Series Mania Festival in Lille, Ceux qui rougissent by Julien Gaspar-Oliveri surprises for its documentary-like fashion of filming the malaise but also the hopes of a generation who desperately need to dream. Distancing himself from the stereotypes inhabiting the usual teenage series, Gaspar-Oliveri chooses to seek out modern-day high schoolers. The result is a captivating portrait of a fairly “normal” day-to-day reality which becomes extraordinary through the power of film.

Ceux qui rougissent is a mini-series composed of eight ten-minute episodes which (finally) shows the true face of adolescence, with its moments of tenderness but also doubt and questioning. Having been broadcast since September on Arte France and currently streaming on Radio Télévision Suisse’s platform Play RTS, Ceux qui rougissent follows a supply teacher (played by Julien Gaspar-Oliveri himself) who upsets the monotony of a Swiss high school (or a gymnasium, as they’re known in Switzerland). In charge of a workshop in a theatre which smells of damp, the newcomer unsettles his students’ habits by suggesting they "live" drama with passion, as if it were an art rather than a hobby. This company composed of eleven students rediscovers Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream thanks to their new teacher, who acts not only as a guide who leads them towards the beauty of the text but who also unearths talent.

By way of unusual exercises based on improvisation, the new teacher helps his pupils to look at the world differently, to free themselves from the preconceptions they have of a classic text which has become indigestible over time. Their existences, the individual experiences which have marked their lives become the stuff of dreams, a base on which to build utopias. The true face of adolescence is subsequently revealed through theatre, which allows these pupils to become protagonists of their own lives.

With a documentary-like mise en scène, Ceux qui rougissent allows us to enter into the inner world of a group of youngsters who de-robe in front of the camera, as if it didn’t even exist. This approach helps the audience to "feel" the protagonists’ emotions directly in a kind of deep-water immersion that’s both fascinating and dangerous. As if flayed alive, the protagonists of Ceux qui rougissent have to manage their emotions, push beyond their limits, and free themselves from group pressure in order to find the "truth" of acting and to understand what theatre really is. In this sense, the bodies of these young people become the physical embodiment of a private world which reveals itself on stage, cathartically.

Through these youngsters’ daily lives, made up of joy as well as tears, adolescence is shown in all its ambiguous beauty, a suspended moment where things can change and metamorphose in an instant. Julien Gaspar-Oliveri never slides into cliches, refusing to yield to the usual easy roads taken in the funny but superficial teen series we’re only too familiar with. What interests him is the intimacy that’s created within the group of adolescents he’s filming, the sincerity and sensibility of their conversations, and the passion for theatre which animates every moment of their everyday lives. Ceux qui rougissent is a moving, funny and engaging series which overturns our certainties.

Ceux qui rougissent was produced by Melocoton Films and Box Productions.