Paris (AFP)

More current than ever: at 81, the author Annie Ernaux influences artists and intellectuals of the new generation, who do it well, with three films inspired by her feminist and social work coming out in quick succession.

Proof of the relevance of her texts, the adaptation of her autobiographical account on clandestine abortion, "The Event", allowed the director Audrey Diwan to take the Golden Lion to Venice.

In August, "Simple Passion", signed Danielle Arbid, was released in theaters.

And Wednesday it's the turn of a more experimental documentary, "I liked to live there", fruit of the meeting of the author with the director Régis Sauder around his adopted city, Cergy-Pontoise, in the north. -west of Paris.

The influence of the former professor of literature does not stop there: from the feminist filmmaker Céline Sciamma to the writer of "class defectors" Edouard Louis, many intellectuals claim to be the author of the "Years". ..

"What astonishes me" in this attraction for a work begun half a century ago ("Des armoires vides", 1974, "La Place" Prix Renaudot in 1984), "is to discover myself as a precursor. C 'is very surprising, ”says the author.

Annie Ernaux on November 12, 1984 in Paris after receiving the Renaudot prize for "La Place" Pierre GUILLAUD AFP / Archives

"Me, there were things that I wanted to say, to write but I was not paying attention" to their political significance at the time, affirms the one who has recently plunged back into Pierre's "The Heirs" Bourdieu and said to himself: "but everything that is happening at the moment was written there!".

With the revival of feminist questions, "the period thrills me so much", adds the one that has resonated in her work description of the intimacy of a woman and upheavals in society.

"When the political landscape is not so encouraging, if there is something that is alive, that moves the lines, it is feminism," she greets.

- Desire for incarnation -

On screen, the adaptation of "Simple Passion" or "The Event" (in theaters on November 24), made it possible to "update" these stories, rejoices the author, who has discovered children's cinema (" going to see Bourvil, Fernandel, it was + festive day + ") and was marked by Fellini (" La Strada ") or Louis Malle (" Les Amants ").

The directors, Danielle Arbid, 51, and Audrey Diwan, 41, belong "to the next generation", and their "transcription is also that of their time", she underlines.

French director Audrey Diwan receives the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival on September 11, 2021 for her film "The Event", adaptation of Annie Ernaux's autobiographical story on abortion Filippo MONTEFORTE AFP / Archives

"Simple Passion" describes the amorous fever for a married man when "The Event" relates the clandestine abortion of a student who seeks to extricate herself from a modest social condition.

The film is a way of reviving this book "which did not have an echo when it was released (in 2000), in the trough of feminism, because it was a huge nuisance".

On the preparation of these films, Annie Ernaux preferred to keep an outside eye, giving some advice: "I write, I don't know how to make films!".

She did not necessarily expect to be adapted: "with texts like mine, in the first person and not in the third, you have to transpose", she emphasizes.

"We go from interiority to exteriority, it is the great difficulty for the two directors and I think that (these films) could not have been made by a man," she continues.

The third film, dedicated to Cergy-Pontoise, is signed by a director, Régis Sauder.

By comparing the author's writings with scenes from today's life, he focuses on the unique identity of the new town, city of choice for Annie Ernaux, at the heart of his texts.

"No one is a prophet in his country and it took a long time to realize the immensity of the work" of Annie Ernaux, confides the director to AFP.

"She puts words on things that we have felt. We have the feeling of maintaining a very precise link with her, and in fact it is the work that speaks to us," he adds.

Audrey Diwan praises the "both pure and very visceral" side of her writing.

"With me, it immediately aroused a desire for incarnation," she told AFP during the Mostra in Venice.

© 2021 AFP