In theaters since Wednesday, “Youssef Salem is successful” follows a writer who is experiencing success for the first time with his new novel. A comedy carried by Ramzy Bedia and directed by Baya Kasmi, screenwriter of “Name of People”.
Youssef Salem has success from Baya Kasmi
With Ramzy Bedia, Noémie Lvovsky, Abbes Zahmani…
What is it about ? Youssef Salem, 45, has always managed to miss his career as a writer. But trouble begins when his new novel meets with success because Youssef couldn’t help but draw inspiration from his own, for better, and especially for worse. He must now avoid at all costs that his book falls into the hands of his family…
A cinegenic city
2022 DOMINO FILMS/FRANCE 2 CINEMA
Part of the film takes place in Port-de-Bouc, in the Bouches-du-Rhône, where the hero’s parents live. It is also in this city that Bac Nord was filmed. “It’s funny to see on screen the two radically different imaginary versions of this quiet seaside town”laughs the director.
Genesis
Stephanie Branchu
Baya Kasmi was inspired by the experience she had with the release of her first feature film, Je Suis À Vous Tout De Suite. “What interested me was the way intimate traumas could influence our life choices, political or religious. The film was received from a societal angle, and I was asked about immigration, Islam, the cities, the veil… I had the impression that everyone saw the film as a sociological thesis on the North Africans of France […]”she recalls.
It was also a personal work, in which she evoked elements of her childhood. The release of the film was an emotional moment with her family, she realized that “the freedom to tell a story engages others in spite of us, and in spite of them.” With Youssef Salem is successful, she wanted to raise the following questions: “Does the Arab in France have the right to romance? Does he have the right to tragedy, to a mythical or universal dimension, outside of his social and religious affiliation?”
A fruitful collaboration
2022 DOMINO FILMS/FRANCE 2 CINEMA
Like her previous feature, I’m yours right away, Baya Kasmi wrote the screenplay with her partner Michel Leclerc. The couple also wrote most of the latter’s films together, such as Le Nom des gens, La Lutte des classes and Les Goûts et les couleurs.
Baya Kasmi talks about their collaboration: “It was really a playful and jubilant process, in line with our previous joint writings but with a new lightness, which gave us total freedom of storytelling. Nothing is true but at the same time everything is. We We weren’t afraid to throw out absurd ideas, as long as we managed to make it into something fair and believable for the public.”
A tailor-made role
2022 DOMINO FILMS/FRANCE 2 CINEMA
Baya Kasmi wrote the character of Youssef for Ramzy Bedia, whom she had directed in her first feature film. She had told him about the project as soon as Je Suis À Vous Tout De Suite came out: “He had the extreme generosity to tell me that he would make the film. The script only arrived seven years later and he kept his word!” About the actor, the director says: “I wanted to write a role commensurate with his burlesque grace, his depth, his charisma. Ramzy is a great actor, the whole comedy depends on the sincerity of his score in the film.”