GRAND PRIX AU FESTIVAL DU FESTIVAL DE JOYEUSE 2015 :

JURY (Jean-Pierre Mocky, Rufus, Jules Stitruk, Lola Créton)

JURY PRIZE - In&Out Festival, Nice, 2015

TO WATCH THE FEATURE
Ask the private link to lesfilmsdelange@gmail.com

THE STORY

SUMMARY 1
When his mother dies, Thomas decides to free himself from a family who smothers him and from a small town which fossilizes him. Inspired by the musicals he grew up with, his goal has always been to become a singer. Taking with him only his guitar, his determination to succeed and his illusions, he turns up in Paris. Reality soon catches up with him. But after many encounters and experiences, he sets out on a double initiation journey: professional as well as personal.

SUMMARY 2
After the death of his mother, Thomas, a young southerner who's dedicated his life to music, decides to go and conquer Paris, in the hopes of becoming a singer. Without any resources, he discovers the bohemian life style and meets Lola, who sings in a cabaret and whom he befriends. Lola's producer falls for the young artist.

CAST

Thomas Polly, Thérèse Lanfranca ("Omelette" by Rémi Lange), Annie Alba ("Mes parents" by Rémi lange), Philippe Barassat (director of "Folle de Rachid en transit sur mars", "Indésirables" and actor for Brigitte Sy in "La promenade du diable"), Ivan Mitifiot, Sophie Blondy (director "Elle et lui au 14ème étage", "L'Étoile du jour" with Denis Lavant and Iggy Pop, and actress for Żuławski in "L'amour braque"), S-dep (photographer and actor), Anouchka Csernakova (actress for numerous films), Hervé Chenais (acror in "Devotee", "L'Étoile du jour", "Indésirables"), Catherine Le Naour, Sonia Bénéteau (actress for Jean-Pierre Mocky, host of a TV show), Clément Lanfranca, Françoise Julien-Cordelier ("Omelette" by Rémi Lange), Béatrice de Staël ("Main dans la main", "La guerre est déclarée").

DISTRIBUTION OF THE FILM

 - Release date in theaters with DESTINY DISTRIBUTION (in partnership with PINK TV, La Plate-Forme – Dunkerque, and A Thou Bout d’Chant, a concert hall in Lyon): 4^th quarter of 2015.

- Release date on DVD (in the FNAC stores, at the reduced price) with ARCADES: 1^st quarter of 2016.

- International distribution by Remi Lange

FESTIVALS

1- “Chéries-Chéris”, Paris, 2014 (November 29^th, 2014 – MK2 Bibliothèque)

 

2- “Désirs-Désirs”, Tours, 2015

3- Opening film for “Écrans  Mixtes”, Lyon, 2015 :

4- JURY PRIZE - In&Out Festival, Nice, 2015
"Après dix jours de festivités, « In & Out » le festival du film LGBT de Nice et de Cannes s’est achevé hier soir ! "Le Chanteur", de Rémi Lange a reçu le Prix du Jury. Ce nouveau long-métrage musical du réalisateur culte de "Omelette", s’inspire de l’histoire vraie de Thomas Polly, un jeune chanteur gay qui, après la mort de sa mère, monte à Paris pour tenter sa chance. Dans le casting, on retrouve des membres l’équipe du festival LGBT lyonnais « Ecrans Mixtes » mais aussi Philippe Barassat qui nous offre une scène jubilatoire. Nous sommes très heureux de ce prix qui vient récompenser un cinéma différent et créatif." PINKTV.FR

 5-"Festival du film artisanal et audacieux", Joyeuse, France, June 2015 (Feature Selection Competition).

 

REACTIONS AND REVIEWS AFTER THE FIRST SCREENINGS

“It was a hit during the screening yesterday  #festival #CheriesCheris! Thank you for this moving film!” (“Chéries-Chéris” festival, Paris)

“Let’s talk about the heart! With The Singer, a very moving queer musical road movie directed by Rémi Lange, whose fair perspective on the humanity of his characters can only move us deeply.

Melodrama, comedy, cinema verite, musical… Rémi Lange frees himself from all barriers. Death, passion, sex, cross-dressing, prostitution, he allows himself to do everything! The freest, maddest, nuttiest and most rock ’n’ roll opening film you’ll have the opportunity to see for a long time in a festival!” (Écrans Mixtes” festival, Lyon)

“The Singer is the great comeback of Rémi Lange (Omelette, Les Yeux Brouillés)” YAGG

 

NOTE OF INTENT OF THE DIRECTOR

The Singer is the result of a beautiful encounter, the kind of which one experiences rarely and from which only artists together seem able to profit” (Bruno Thévenon, “Écrans Mixtes” festival) Thomas Polly, a young singer-songwriter who’s released three CDs (Un Pied sur terre, Entractes  and Le Temps passe) met director Rémi Lange on January 4^th 2014 in Lyon when Lange was making a film for hire: the trailer for the latest “Écrans Mixtes” film festival. It’s Ivan Mitifiot, manager of the festival, who introduced the director of filmed private diaries Omelette and Les Yeux brouillés (released in 1998 and 2000) to Thomas.

Thomas and Rémi found a number of points of convergence among their respective artistic worlds. Since 2005, when he’d directed Cake au sirop for Canal+, a short musical inspired by Jacques Demi’s Peau d’Âne, Rémi had planned to direct a melodrama/musical.

Since Thomas’s compositions are intimately linked to his own life, Rémi decided to write a fictional story based on a few biographical elements of the young singer, by using as a narrative thread 12 songs already recorded and mixed.

Narratively speaking, the story of the main character evokes a picaresque novel: a down-and-out hero who lives on the edge of society and at its expense.

Throughout outrageous adventures, which provide opportunities to present pictures of vulgar life and of a comedy of manners, the hero meets people from all walks of life…

The structure of the film consists of 12 songs from the first three albums of Thomas Polly: Un Pied sur Terre, Entractes and Le Temps passe (2008, 2010 and 2012). The main influence is Lars Von Trier’s Dancer In The Dark. Similar to this film, The Singer is midway between a musical, “rough” cinema, akin to a documentary, and melodrama.

Formally speaking, this film was shot with a small HD “amateur” camera, the only technical staff being the director himself.

It partly follows the criteria of Dogme 95, the film movement launched by Danish director Lars Von Trier to fight against blockbusters, tricks and special effects in contemporary cinema and to go back to an original restraint.

The Singer tries to come as close as possible to the main principles of Dogme 95:

1/ Shooting must be done on location.  Props and sets must not be brought in.

2/ The camera must be hand-held. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted.

3/ The film must be in color. Special lighting is not acceptable.

4/ Optical work and filters are forbidden.

5/ The film must not contain superficial action.

6/ Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden.

But as in Dancer In The Dark, one can escape those too strict rules while keeping a nearly documentary style: the camera is always carried.

The goal of this film is to underline how difficult it is for a young, small-town singer-songwriter to be successful in his field: French chanson. A lot of rock ’n’ roll and pop singers only perform lyrics and music written by the composers they work with.

Others write their own lyrics and put them to music. Such is the case with the protagonist of the film, Thomas, who shows himself to be a good, self-taught singer-songwriter.

How to find recognition when you’re a young, small-town singer who wasn’t born with a musical background?

The journey of this “musical fighter” is shown in this film.

While he lives at his aunt’s, Thomas expresses his need to travel to Paris to find a producer. Since remote tools (emails sent to various production companies like messages in a bottle, a website where demos of his songs can be heard) aren’t enough, as he explains to his nephew, he must meet producers face-to-face: find the offices of the companies and meet Parisian people in flesh and blood.

Before leaving his town, Thomas finds on the Internet some phone numbers in the field of music production.

But when he arrives in Paris, he suffers more than one failure: missed meetings with producers who make phony promises and whom he then “strikes off his list”.

Meeting a producer proves to be more difficult than anticipated. Knowing someone who could introduce him seems to be the best thing to do. His meeting with Lola, an experienced singer who performs every weekend in a small theatre in Paris and who’s shown as being “generous”, is going to be decisive for the career of the young Thomas.

She’s the good fairy who puts him in touch with the Paradise he’s been dreaming about: the world of music.
              (c) PHOTO : Godefroy Besnehard

But when he finally meets Ivan, Lola’s producer-manager (played by Ivan Mitifiot), things aren’t as simple as he’d thought…

Ivan’s behavior is ambiguous and Thomas must undergo various trials to convince him: his demos are judged, as is his singing, his past is questioned (his street singing, his busking and his shows in nightclubs…), he has to prove that he can sing live with his guitar (the song Polly in the film).

Despite all that, Ivan ends up enabling him to record his first album with his first hit, À Contrecoeur.

Other characters in the film also show hard it can be for a singer during his whole career.

How hard it is to find recognition, as his grandmother states when she reminds him of other ways to become successful (TV talent shows) and of the competition between singers in a world where ruthlessness and speed are paramount (“Otherwise there are lot of other people who’ll take your place”, she says to him).

How hard it is to hold on to his career over the years, as is shown in the scene with Lola in the attic room when she tells Thomas that she feels that “It’s more or less over”…

To offset the ambiance of the story, which might be seen as somewhat oppressive despite numerous instances of humor, musical scenes will provide a break, a sense of gentleness, fantasy, poetry…

This film reconciles naturalism (through scenes of daily life shot in the style of the “direct cinema”) and symbolism (thanks to scenes with singing).

Unlike other musicals where scenes with singing are usually duets, The Singer tries to offer songs for only one voice, that of Thomas Polly, inviting the audience to a self-examination, a discovery of their inner world and their own initiation journey…

PRODUCTION

Rémi Lange is the co-producer on this film with “Les Films de l’ange”, a non-profit association whose aim is to help create and distribute audiovisual or literary works (funded in 1999 by his current president, Rémi Lange).

   

 

RÉMI LANGE

Known for his two diary features, Omelette and Les Yeux brouillés, which came out in French theaters in 1998 and 2000, Rémi has also authored 4 films made for hire at Canal + (for the Œil Du Cyclone and the Nuit Gay TV programs) and of 7 fiction films released directly on DVD or shown on TV (Canal +, Pink TV), including Tarik El Hob and Devotee, released in France as well as in the United States, Israel, Germany…

In January 2014, Rémi shot a short film titled Le Fétichiste and began shooting his sixth full feature, The Singer, a melodrama/musical with the young singer Thomas Polly, which will be released in France with Destiny Distribution during the third quarter of 2015 and at the beginning of 2016 on DVD.

This image maker sometimes has fun playing the writer (Journal d’Omelette, ErosOnyx editions, 2011), the singer (Partir and Si vous l’aviez compris, 2009 and 2010), the visual artist (photographic exhibition Dream Lover at the Lavoir Public in Lyon, march 2014) or the actor (Indésirables by Philippe Barassat, released in France on March 18, 2015)…

Jérémie Elkaïm and Rémi Lange in Indésirables by Philippe Barassat

(release date: March 2015)

Complete filmography

1994: Les Anges dans nos campagnes (24 minutes, shown on Canal +)

1996: Le Super-8 n'est pas mort, il bande encore (24 minutes, shown on Canal +)

1993-97: Omelette (78 minutes, bought in 2000 for the collection of the Musée National d'Art Moderne, shown on Canal +)

1999: Les Yeux Brouillés (85 minutes, shown on Pink TV)

2002: L'invasion des pholades géantes (3 minutes, shown on Canal +)

2003: Tarik El Hob / The Road to love (70 minutes, "Freedom Award" OUTFEST, Los Angeles 2003, released in the USA in 2003)

2004: Mes Parents (98 minutes)

2005: The Sex of Madame H (58 minutes, shown on Pink TV)

2005: Cake au Sirop de Cordom (3 minutes, shown on Canal +)

2006: Statross le Magnifique (22 minutes)

2007: Thyroid (8 minutes)

2008: Devotee (50 minutes, selected for the New Fest festival in New York and the Outfest festival in Los Angeles, as well as for gay festivals in Tel Aviv, Ljubljana, Barcelona, where the film received a special mention..., released in the USA at the beginning of 2009, shown on Pink TV)

2009: Partir (74 minutes, DVD release in France on August 31, 2009)

2014: Le Fétichiste (3 minutes)

http://remilange.blogspot.fr/

THOMAS POLLY

Thomas Polly is 27. He’s a singer-songwriter, an actor and a director. He also acknowledges his fondness for cross-dressing and performs in nightclubs.

An artist of many faces, half-man/half-woman, half-angel/half-demon, impulsive or prudent, bright or dark, Thomas Polly is in all his nuances and all his expressions a passionate person.

Hit very early by writing and singing, he sees himself from his younger days as a singer.

Self-taught, he learns how to play guitar and writes his own songs. During a six-month exile, he begins to play in the streets of Barcelona. His voice doesn’t leave anybody unmoved. In fact, it’s affecting!

Back in France, he keeps on singing in the streets and goes from live music bar to live music bar.

He’s quickly noticed, which enables him to be supported by the town of Amiens and by the “Défi Jeunes” (Youth Challenge) measures to record his first album, Entractes. By that time, he’s 23.

Thomas Polly is eclectic and refuses to follow any format. The album is a collection of intimist songs which go from acoustic to pop rock and electro.

Lyrics are written in the first person, in a cutting and extremely personal way. The author brings up, among other things, the recent death of his mother.

He performs in various places, between Lille and Paris, with Bernard Spizzi, a pianist and choirmaster.

He’s also chosen for the French chanson contest at the great theater of Douai and enters a contemporary music school to improve his skills.

His vocal talents also allow him to work as an actor/puppeteer: first in Amiens, then in Lyon, where he settles in 2013 and where he plays up to six characters in the same show.

He also gets the opportunity to stage his own, first show, Cabaret Revolucion, which combine singing, dancing, comedy, video and transformism.

The show is produced and scheduled for two months by a cabaret in Lyon.

In 2014, Thomas Polly acts in Rémi Lange’s new feature film The Singer, where he plays the main character. A melodrama mixing fiction and reality, it tells the story of a young singer who tries his luck in Paris. A tour of various festivals is scheduled, as well as a release in theatres around the country during the last quarter of 2015.

Thomas Polly is currently working on a new album

www.thomaspolly.fr

CREDITS

Starring
Thomas Polly
Thérèse Lanfranca
Françoise Julien-Cordelier
Clément Lanfranca
Sonia Bénéteau
Annie Alba
Philippe Barassat
Béatrice de Staël
Hervé Chenais
Dominique Rocher
Catherine Le Naour
Sophie Blondy
Ivan Mitifiot
S-Dep
Anouchka Csernakova
Mathieu Gauriat
Fabrice Robert
Zo Van
Philippe Mendelsohn
Bruno Thévenon
Brahim Naït-Balk
Antonin de Saint Martin
Cédric Denonfoux
Guillaume Quashie
Benjamin Roubaud
Maurice Julien
et les figurants de Paris et Lyon

Direction, script
Rémi Lange

Direction assistants
Eric Dupont, Julien Lucia, Bruno Thévenon
Loïc Romagny

Editing
Rémi Lange, Antoine Janot, Philippe Barassat, Sophie Blondy

Sound mixing
Olivier Rodriguez, Quentin Keller

Color grading
Pierre Agoutin

Thomas'songs : Thomas Polly
Je te prends la main (Thomas Polly/Thomas Polly)
Avancer (Thomas Polly/Thomas Polly)
Berceuse (Thomas Polly/Thomas Polly)
Laisse-moi (Thomas Polly/Thomas Polly)
Jamais (Thomas Polly/Thomas Polly)
Improvisation espagnole (Thomas Polly/Thomas Polly)
L'entracte (Thomas Polly/Thomas Polly, RMX DJ Jos)
Polly (Thomas Polly/Thomas Polly)
A contre cœur... (Thomas Polly/Thomas Polly, arrangée par Philippe Mendelsohn)
Tranquila-te (Thomas Polly/Thomas Polly)
Le temps passe (Thomas Polly/Thomas Polly)
Transporte-moi (Thomas Polly/Thomas Polly)
Je serai là... (Thomas Polly/Thomas Polly)

Lola's songs : written by Mathieu Gauriat & Julien Esperon
A lost dream (Mathieu Gauriat/Mathieu Gauriat)
Tes mains (Julien Esperon/ Mathieu Gauriat et Julien Esperon)

Additional music
Thomas Polly, Gaëtan Bernard

Set photographers
Godefroy Besnehard, S-Dep

Artistic adviser
Ivan Mitifiot

Production
Rémi Lange / Les films de l’ange

Withe the support of
LE CONNÉTABLE (Paris)
LA PLATE-FORME (Dunkerque)
AGITATEURS PUBLIC (Dunkerque)
À THOU BOUT D’CHANT (Lyon)

© Rémi Lange / Les films de l’ange 2015

1H40 - 16/9 - COLOR