Abstract by Fred Baillif
A group of teenage girls have been placed in a residential care home with social workers. This forced “family” experience creates unexpected tensions and intimacies. An incident triggers a chain of over-reactions. The fall-out reveals the weaknesses of the retrograde juvenile system, as well as the demons that haunt ‘La Mif’. A social drama, mirroring our ill-mannered morals.
In search of natural performances and unsuspected talents, Fred Baillif has developed a direct cinema style based on real people and improvisation. In this case, the process started with individual interviews with each of the residents and the employees of a children’s home. He then conducted improv workshops over two years, which progressively allowed characters to emerge. He gathered all the elements that came out and wrote a script. It didn’t have dialogues, but a general plot, an outline and some punchlines. The headmaster Claudia Grob (Lora) shared with him her strong frustration towards the youth protection system and doing so, she extremely inspired the story. Fred will share this experience and his vision of what people call “Cinema verité”.