This Wednesday, March 17, 2021, the film Les tickouilles, directed by Andréa Bescond and Éric Métayer, is being broadcast on France 2. A feature film that deconstructs the trauma and resilience work of children victims of sexual violence.
In 2018, the film The Tickles was released in theaters. A film adaptation of the dance performance performed by Andréa Bescond, Les tickouilles tells the story of Odette, a young woman confronted with her demons and the sexual violence she suffered as a child. Even before free speech took the important place it deserves, Andréa Bescond was already delivering the work of resilience and reconstruction of people who were victims of sexual violence during their childhood.
A work of resilience
Indeed, The Tickles looks back on the personal experience of Andréa Bescond, a victim of sexual violence as a child, when she was just a child. Both the film and the play were an outlet for many viewers who suffered violence similar to that of Andréa Bescond. If this film remains poignant, it allows above all to put words on this scourge and, above all, to talk about it.
In 2018, aufeminin was able to speak with Andréa Bescond. She spoke without filtering her traumas, but nevertheless recalled the daily work that it takes: "Every day, I work to be a better person", she explained to us before adding: “You have to do a job with yourself. You have to look at yourself in a mirror and confront yourself too. (…) I wouldn't say that you can't get out of it on your own. has no rules. Each life is unique, each existence is unique. Everyone has their own way of seeing things. "
The guilt of the victims
If rebuilding yourself is a long journey, whether you are alone or accompanied in this process, it is because there is a certain shame and guilt that plague victims of sexual violence. When Andréa Bescond recounts what she suffered as a child, she explains: "I was made to feel guilty very quickly by this abuser. So I thought it was me who was dirty, that I was kind of a prostitute and that in the end, I wanted it all."
Andréa Bescond therefore evokes a manipulation, alerting to the hold that an adult can have on a child before explaining the reasons for the film's title. Her executioner spoke of "tickling" when he sexually assaulted her: "This is often the case: abusers use a pretty term for the unspeakable and sexual violence, especially with children."
There is guilt, self-destruction and then a long work of rebuilding to love yourself again. All these mechanisms are discussed in the film Les tickouilles, co-directed by Andréa Bescond and Eric Metayer, broadcast this Wednesday, March 17, 2021 on France 2.