Stéphane Riethauser
Switzerland | 2019 | 93 min
World premiere
Language : French
Subtitle : English
Madame is Caroline, the grandmother of Stéphane Riethauser. An old lady who, from the very first images, we sense hides a rare strength of character behind her stylish hairstyle and bourgeois ways. Their relationship is at the heart of the film: a double self-portrait in which the matriarch and her grandson, a gay filmmaker, confide in each other. The incredibly rich family archives are thus not only the material for a (fascinating) family saga, but above all the means for the filmmaker’s reinvented dialogue with himself, with his grandmother and with the bourgeois society in which he grew up. It is in these images and in these confrontations that the film finds its subversive power by deconstructing one by one, with the required sincerity, the gender clichés that confine everyone to a role. From the short films in Super 8 wholly dedicated to machismo that Stéphane used to shoot as a child, to this film, we thus see the itinerary of a man who has been able, like his ancestress before him, to break free of the shackles of a patriarchal society.
Céline Guénot
Audiodescription available with the app Greta, in collaboration with Regards Neufs (www.regards-neufs.ch) and with the support of the Lions Club Nyon.
