Ecrire la vie: Annie Ernaux racontée par des lycéennes et des lycéens

In ÉCRIRE LA VIE; ANNIE ERNAUX RACONTÉE PAR DES LYCÉENNES ET DES LYCÉENS, Claire Simon visits several secondary schools in France where students have been assigned to read various books by Nobel-laureate Annie Ernaux. The film is comprised of group discussions, where teenagers read and comment on passages of her novels. Uniting two recurring interests in Simon’s filmography—the lives of young people and the operation of educational institutions—ÉCRIRE LA VIE is a documentary about pedagogy in its most open and democratic sense. Teachers point out connections, open up areas of ambivalence or nuance and use Ernaux’s books as prompts to awaken creativity and thinking—but never lecture students from a position of mastery or expertise. It is the teenagers themselves whose voices are most important: they are encouraged to express their impressions and their personal relationships to the material. What emerges from these discussions is a web of complex feelings—from shock to identification, from disapproval to admiration—that linger long after the class has finished. ÉCRIRE LA VIE is ultimately a great testimony of the powerful effects that an intimate encounter with literature can summon when collectively shared. (Cristina Álvarez López)

In the presence of Claire Simon.

Claire Simon (selection): LES PATIENTS (1990), COÛTE QUE COÛTE (1995), SINON, OUI (1997), MIMI (2003), ÇA BRÛLE (2006), LES BUREAUX DE DIEU (2008), GÉOGRAPHIE HUMAINE (2013), GARE DU NORD (2013), LE BOIS DONT LES RÊVES SONT FAITS (2016), LE CONCOURS (2016), PREMIÈRES SOLITUDES (2018), LE VILLAGE (2019), LE FILS DE L’ÉPICIÈRE, LE MAIRE, LE VILLAGE ET LE MONDE (2020), VOUS NE DÉSIREZ QUE MOI (2021), NOTRE CORPS (2023), APPRENDRE (2024)