Solène Delinger 08:00, April 3, 2024
Élie Semoun returns to the cinema this Wednesday April 3 with "Ducobu goes green", the fifth part of the saga this time devoted to ecology. A subject that is particularly close to his heart but which he hates to see being diverted by "eco-terrorists", whom he openly mocks. Interview.
INTERVIEW
Today is a particularly distressing day for Élie Semoun, a day that he feared as much as he impatiently awaited... The day of the release of his new film
Ducobu goes green
, in theaters this Wednesday, April 3. “You know, nothing is certain, it’s like in a relationship...There is no certainty of success or failure,” he tells us, visibly worried.
“We are expected to turn the corner with this fifth
Ducobu
”
Despite his more than 30 years of career, the success of previous installments, the love of the public, Élie Semoun still doubts, is afraid, questions himself. Disappointing spectators is not an option for the comedian who has set himself a huge challenge: to come back with a fifth film in the same saga. “Sagas can seem like scams to the public,” he tells us lucidly. Rest assured,
Ducobu going green
is not one of them! Élie Semoun has done everything to renew himself: “The thing I fear the most is repeating myself. I don’t like that,” he assures. “I told myself that we had to set the bar higher for each
Ducobu
because I know that we are expected around the corner.”
“I wanted to make fun of eco-terrorists”
For this fifth part, Élie Semoun decided to talk about ecology, a “modern, current and profound” subject through the experience of the dunce Ducobu. The king of cheating will suddenly become interested in the future of the planet when he learns that a certain Rita Grinberg (a little nod to our dear Greta Thunberg) has taken a year off to fight against global warming. Bingo, Ducobu has found the perfect excuse to do nothing! Copy a dictation into a notebook? No thanks, he doesn't want to write about a dead tree and participate in deforestation. Running during sports class? Out of the question, it would release even more C02 into the atmosphere. And Ducobu takes with him all his little comrades from Sainte-Potache, the majority clearly more lazy than militant.
“I don’t make fun of ecology”
Small tackle from Élie Semoun towards those he calls “eco-terrorists” and whom he loathes. "The idea for the film came to me while listening to the radio and watching things on the Internet. I saw idiotic eco-terrorists sticking themselves to railings or throwing paint at works of art. I liked them I found them so ridiculous that I wanted to make fun of them", explains the actor who does not appreciate environmental activist Greta Thunberg any more. Just throw him on the subject, he agrees: "I don't really like her. I find that she complains a lot but doesn't provide solutions. And then I don't really like her political positions at the moment on Palestine, I find it unbearable. What right does she have to judge the Israeli people like that, without information, without culture?
?", he gets annoyed.
In
Ducobu goes green
, Greta Thunberg is not the only one to take her position! Élie Semoun hits on everyone, including climate skeptics. “Be careful, I'm not making fun of ecology. It's a subject that worries me and which should worry everyone,” he emphasizes.
Léonie, Ducobu's lover, is very anxious about the future of the planet. She has done her research, knows all the figures, knows how harmful meat consumption is to global warming. Her interpreter, Louise Riguidel, 13, understands her struggle: "I was already aware of this subject before the film because I live on a farm, we use dry toilets, a small container of hot water. We do very pay attention to the earth, to the planet. After filming, I just had a little habit of turning off the lights even when there were people in the room,” she says with a laugh. His experience on
Ducobu
, his very first in the cinema,
was particularly joyful. “I made lots of friends!”, the young actress confides to us, with stars in her eyes.
“Leading kids is a crazy job!”
Élie Semoun also gave her self-confidence. “He’s fantastic,” marvels Louise Riguidel when we talk to her about the director who himself has kept something very childish in his way of being, a candor in his eyes, a gentleness too. We can easily imagine him knowing how to do things with children. “However, it’s not easy to manage them!”, he assures us. "It's a crazy job! You have to explain everything to them, put yourself in their place, channel them. You have to tell them not to lose concentration, not to look to the right or to the left, so that their mind is really focused on the scene". “Oh yeah, don’t you find that obvious? Yet you do it really well!”, reacts Damien Pauwels, the interpreter of
Ducobu
whom Élie Semoun has probably taken under his wing.
The comedian is saddened when his actor tells us that he doesn't like school or reading, like a certain Ducobu... "It's horrible to read, where's the pleasure when you read?", blurts out he faces a totally frightened Élie Semoun. “I swear, it annoys me when you say that, you’re really an idiot,” the comedian replies, as if he were talking to his own son. A lover of books, Élie Semoun wants to pass on his passion to young comedians, who are difficult to convince. So he takes him through his feelings, talks to him about love and it almost works... "At your age, I read
Le Grand Meaulnes
by Alain-Fournier. You see, you are a little in love with little Sarah .Well, if you read this book, you will fall in love with her even more.
It's a beautiful love story for children your age and it's magnificent. It will put your feelings into words." The actor knows very well what he is talking about, he who moved us so much with
Counting to You
, his first moving novel about the feeling of love and breakup. Write, play comedy , realize... Élie Semoun always hits the mark when he creates, and touches our hearts.