Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec
, whose first two episodes are broadcast this Monday, from 9:10 p.m., on TF1, was crowned "Best 52-minute series", at the 2022 La Rochelle Fiction Festival.
It recounts the daily life of an establishment like no other, where students with disabilities rub shoulders with others who are not.
This exciting drama (mix of drama and comedy) is inspired by a true story.
Immersed in a unique establishment in France!
Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec
, broadcast this Monday at 9:10 p.m. on TF1 and crowned "best 52-minute series" at the 2022 La Rochelle French Fiction Festival, tells the daily life of an establishment like no other, where students rub shoulders with disabilities and others who are not.
This exciting drama, carried by Stéphane De Groodt and Valérie Karsenti, will change your view of disability.
Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec
follows Victoire (China Thybaud), who is really shaken up when her parents enroll her in a school that practices reverse inclusion by integrating so-called “valid” students among students with disabilities.
A series based on a true story
This fiction
is inspired by a true story, that of Fanny Riedberger, who created, wrote and produced the series.
“I consider myself extremely lucky to have had this experience and I really wanted to share it, explained the author at the La Rochelle Festival.
I had this desire, perhaps utopian, to change the way people look at disability.
Everything we don't know is scary.
»
Victoire, a 17-year-old teenager in full rebellion, faces a difficult return to school.
She has no desire to fit in.
She is full of prejudice.
"What she's going through is what I've been through.
I was forced to join this school.
I was then a valid full of a priori.
It was a world that I did not know and I was extremely refractory.
Like Victoire, in three years of schooling in this establishment, I learned a lot of things and went beyond my preconceived ideas,” continues Fanny Riedberger, who also directed the first two episodes.
At Toulouse-Lautrec, it is Victoire, the different person, who is looked at oddly.
“Normality is reversed.
When I arrived at this school, the numerical superiority was in front of me, and it was me, the ugly duckling, ”recalls Fanny Riedberger.
Over the episodes, the heroine learns to overcome her prejudices and to integrate.
Above all, she must be accepted by Marie-Antoinette (Ness Merad), a teenager with a strong character, for whom she is the referent and whom she must help in her daily tasks.
A series shot at the Toulouse-Lautrec high school
For the sake of authenticity, the series was shot in the real Toulouse-Lautrec high school, an establishment – alas – unique in its kind in France, located in Vaucresson in the Versailles academy.
While the roles of parents and teaching staff are played by seasoned actors (Stéphane De Groodt, Valérie Karsenti, Charlie Bruneau, Aure Atika), the production has bet on young talents to compose its small troupe of students.
No question of taking young able-bodied actors to interpret students with disabilities: “I started theater at the Toulouse-Lautrec high school.
We did the casting there, without good feelings.
It was long, it lasted a year,” says Fanny Riedberger.
“I didn't even want to pass the casting, but finally my ego took over… and luckily!
I only remember good things from this experience, even if it was very hard, because my character and the scenes we filmed are very close to my reality.
But it was worth it,” rejoices Ness Merad.
A series that never sinks into pathos
Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec
is not a series on disability, but a high school series.
"It turns out that in this playground there are people with disabilities who have the same problems as everyone else, clothes, love affairs, drunken parents, and, at the same time, others moreover, which make you look a little wider", sums up Fanny Riedberger.
Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec
places great emphasis on humor and self-mockery.
" It's reality !
Joy of living and humor are an integral part of the establishment.
This corrosive humor is their philosophy.
They chamber themselves, ”says the creator of the fiction.
And to entrust: “In the writing, there was a fear and a desire to respect all of this, never to be tearful or whore.
»
“At some point, we no longer see the disability, but only the people.
Whereas, in life, we see the disability, but not the people who are behind it”, greets Stéphane De Groodt.
“As Ness once said: 'I'll be happy the day I'm called to do something other than represent disability on TV'.
We are still far from it, but we have taken the first step,” concludes Fanny Riedberger.
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