Facts of life
He attended the festival with one of his favoured actors, Roschdy Zem.
The film tells of a group of mourners who travel to the funeral of a mutual friend Jean-Baptiste (played by Pascal Greggory, Chéreau’s long-time partner). During the filming, Chéreau recalled to Scottish audiences, he spent several weeks on a couple of carriages hired from the French railways shuttling backwards and forwards between Paris and Mulhouse.
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Hide AdThe festival also gave a UK premiere to one of his first films L’homme blessé (The Wounded Man), about a young man’s first gay experiences and considered ground-breaking for its period in 1983. Chéreau told festival audiences: “It was my life, absolutely. First, because it talks about homosexuality, and secondly because it dealt with the deep sadness of adolescence.
“What interested me was that homosexuality was never explained – it is a fact of life, that’s all, and that’s how I like it. The film was ahead of its time and came out of a ghetto.”
Richard Mowe
French Film Festival UK