On the occasion of the release of “16 years” by Philippe Lioret (“Welcome”), here are five things to know about this current variation of “Romeo and Juliet”, worn by the promising Sabrina Levoye and Teïlo Azaïs.
16 years of Philippe Lioret
With Sabrina Levoye, Teïlo Azaïs, Jean-Pierre Lorit…
What is it about ? Nora and Leo meet on the first day of the return to second class. Their eyes lock and all is said. Nora’s brother, a handler at the local hypermarket, is accused of theft and fired on the spot. The manager of the hypermarket is Franck, Leo’s father. The two families clash, the differences are exacerbated and chaos sets in. Nora and Leo’s lives are set ablaze.
2 young talents to follow
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Sabrina Levoye, the interpreter of Nora, had never turned, but took acting lessons in the evening after high school. The young actress came to meet Philippe Lioret and casting director Coralie Amédéo via an announcement.
Teïlo Azaïs already had an agent. He is mainly known for having played Bastien in the trilogy What is this family?!, What is this granny?! and What is this grandpa?!, but especially for his role as Enzo Graçay, a teenager with anger management problems, in the series Un si grand soleil. Philippe Lioret explains about them:
“We met about fifty Nora and as many Leos, and as often, neither Sabrina nor Teïlo were the first chosen. Sabrina had this grace and this freshness from the start, but her modesty prevented her from blending in fully in Nora’s torments.”
“I told myself that it wouldn’t work, but I couldn’t bring myself to oust her either, as her personality appealed to me and made the other candidates bland.”
“So we worked again and again and, one day when she was struggling, thinking that the role was going to escape her, the tears came to her and she had the idea of taking advantage of this moment to take over the stage. And there, bingo, she found ‘the state’, and also realized everything it took to tap into it to get there.”
“And then, still during the trials, I brought Teïlo back. He too has a confusing naturalness: in front of the camera, he does not play, he lives. And behind his casualness, we feel a fierce determination.”
“He had already shot, but what this film asked of him in terms of commitment, he had never given. We worked and he finally found it. So I made them do a scene together and the chemistry s is done. As an aside, Sabrina said to me: ‘When he looks at me, I no longer know where to put myself.’ Perfect.”
Birth of the project
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Philippe Lioret had long wanted to make a contemporary version of Romeo and Juliet: “Shakespeare wrote this piece in the 16th century, but it is so timeless that it could not not be transposed to our time and, suddenly, take on a new lighting.”
“Today, the Capulet and Montaigu families are no longer dueling on every street corner, but a simple spark can ignite the powder. It’s disturbing, but more interesting.”
However, the director hesitated for a long time before starting, because he was sure that other directors had had the same idea as him:
“It seemed so obvious to me that I gave up immediately without even doing any research. And then, some time later, I told a friend about the film I would have liked to make of it – without writing it, I already had in mind – who told me that they didn’t understand why no one had done it yet…”
“Suddenly, I searched and it was true: apart from the two versions of West Side Story and also, from quite a distance, Two Lovers by James Gray who was perhaps vaguely inspired by it, no one really adapted the play to today’s reality.”
2 social backgrounds
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In 16 years, unlike Shakespeare’s heroes, Nora and Leo’s families are not rivals – not yet – but belong to very different backgrounds: Nora lives in the city’s HLM complex, Leo in the residential district. Philippe Lioret specifies:
“Socially speaking, they are poles apart, but that does not concern them. They meet in high school – a place that also erases these differences -, immediately like each other and, for their first time, fall powerfully in love. For them, nothing other has no interest.”
“Capturing Life”
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Philippe Lioret wanted to make a powerful and intimate film, making viewers feel in the presence of the characters. The filmmaker explains: “Just capture life, movement and, if possible, intensity. With Gilles Henry, the director of photography, we made the bet of adapting excellent lenses to a tiny camera whose very small size allowed us to allowed to shoot freely in very small sets. From there, the actors could immerse themselves in the entirety of the scenes and we could follow them continuously.”
Nassim Lyes in the game!
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Note the presence of Nassim Lyes in the role of the brother, who recently played a central character in Overdose by Olivier Marchal. The actor, accustomed to the comic register as evidenced by his performances in Épouse-moi mon buddy, Until here everything is fine and Passing by pécho, confides: “I love comedy but I also like to invest myself in other registers, set myself new challenges.”
“Philippe’s film was one. I passed the casting, aware that he was looking for a slightly younger boy, and my first chance was to get the motorcycle license, because Tarek drives a Tmax scooter which has a lot importance in the story. Time passed, I no longer believed in it too much, and one day Philippe called me personally: he had seen and reviewed all the casting tests and he wanted us to do a session of work.”