‘Premieres Solitudes - Claire Simon’

In the presence of Claire Simon (director).

“Have you already been?” ”You don’t mind?” “Does she sometimes take you in her arms?” These are some of the questions that Anaïs, Manon, Hugo, Elia, Tessa, Catia and Clément ask themselves. In her film, Claire Simon follows teenagers aged between 16 and18 from a sixth-form college in Ivry-sur-Seine, on the outskirts of Paris. Always in pairs, sometimes three at a time, they discuss, without the camera’s presence seeming to bother them, their family, their relationship with their parents, their first love, and how they imagine their future. At home none of them, or virtually none, has the luxury of a listening ear, which makes the way in which their feelings are articulated in this feature-length film all the more impressive: well thought out, eloquent and clear. These young people on the verge of becoming adults are torn between serenity and romanticism, between the desire to be taken care of and their impatience to start living an independent life.