This new programming by France Culture in the Cour du Musée Calvet is based on the idea that literature, poetry, and theatre are not only weapons but also a way to distance oneself, to “disorient” oneself from current events. “A great writer must dare venture out like Don Quixote,” says Enrique Vila-Matas, special guest for this programme. The audience is therefore invited to a wild ride alongside some emblematic works, in the language of Cervantès but also in that of Diderot. With humour and whimsy, guaranteed.
Star by Guillaume Poix
Star stars Guillaume, the author's alter-ego from whom he derisively distances himself, as an apprentice actor dreaming in vain of stardom. An actor with very small roles, even a mere 'silhouette' on the screen, he will nonetheless come across figures from the 7th art in the course of his unremarkable career. Nicole Garcia in particular, as a repetiteur on the set of Claire Simon's film Les bureaux de Dieu (2008), before making an awkward appearance in her film Un beau dimanche. Their friendship took a cinephilic turn with Ariel A. Winthrop, a very furtive actor and director of a single feature film, Miss None, shot in the 1980s in the United States, in which Nicole played Ariel's wife. A few scenes from this film - destroyed by the filmmaker - resurface in the course of the actress's confidences, fuelling Guillaume's desire to find out more about this late extra behind the camera... Star is the novel of a destiny in controlled failure, where humour vies with emotion. It's a lesson in acting and life, magnifying the art of being a supporting character at a time when storytelling and management are forcing us to become the maincharacter of our existence.
Born in 1986, Guillaume Poix is the author of several plays performed in France and abroad and published by Théâtrales, including Soudain Romy Schneider (2020, adapted as a radio drama for France Culture, winner of the Grand Prix de la fiction radiophonique de la SGDL) and Un sacre. Since 2018, he has been working with director Lorraine de Sagazan. In 2024, they created Le silence at the Comédie-Française and Léviathan at the Festival d'Avignon. A former student at the École normale supérieure, he has published three novels with Verticales: Les fils conducteurs (Wepler-Fondation La Poste prize, 2017; Folio, 2019), Là d'où je viens a disparu (2020; Alain Spiess prize for second novel; Frontières-Léonora Miano prize, 2021) and Star (2023).
Distribution
With Nicole Garcia, Guillaume Poix, Mathilde Charbonneaux, Elliot Jenicot, Jean-Pierre Malo,
and student actors from Ensemble 31 of the Cannes and Marseille Regional School of Actors (ERACM): Maëlle Agbodjan, Barbara Chaulet, Thomas Cuevas, Jules Dupont, Julien Francfort, Léa Gautier, Masiyata Kaba, Maya Lopez, Brice Magdinier, Arron Mata, Eliot Piette, Alice Rodanet, Manon Tanguy, Carla Ventre
Adapted by Guillaume Poix from his novel published by Verticales
Original music by Lucas Lelièvre
Director Cédric Aussir
Assistant director Jules Benveniste
With the support of SACD