Official Selection - Competition 2004 / Les choristes / France, Switzerland 2003
Pierre Morhange discovered music and meaning in life thanks to his boarding school music teacher. He was one of the most problematic students, and thumbed his nose at the school’s harsh discipline. But because of his lovely voice he found himself at the centre of the teacher’s struggle to save the souls of lost boys and initiate them into a world of beauty.
The famous conductor Pierre Morhange returns to France for his mother’s funeral. He meets a fellow student from long ago, Pépinot, who tells him that their music teacher has just died as well. The teacher’s diary returns Pierre to the old days: 1949 the talented Clément Mathieu accepted a place at a boys’ boarding school, whose residents are wild, problematic boys, some of them orphans, decidedly not students willing to explore the fragile mystery of music under his leadership. The tyrannical headmaster Racin believes that only strictness will work on the pupils. However, Clément decides he will rely on methods nearer his heart. One particular problem is Pierre Morhange, a boy with the nature of a devil but the face of an angel – and a wonderful voice. He stands in the very centre of the teacher’s fight for the souls of the “lost” boys and the beauty of the world. Clément begins, by means of the magic world of music, to change the lives of his wards once and for all.
95 min / Color, 35 mm
International premiere
Director Christophe Barratier
/ Screenplay Christophe Barratier
/ Dir. of Photography Carlo Varini, Dominique Gentil
/ Music Bruno Coulais
/ Editor Yves Deschamps
/ Producer Jacques Perrin, Arthur Cohn, Nicolas Mauvernay
/ Production Galatée Films, koprodukce / coproduction: Pathé Renn Production, Vega Film, France 2 Cinéma, Novo Arturo Films
/ Cast Gérard Jugnot, François Berléand, Kaddour Merad, Jacques Perrin, Jean-Baptiste Maunier
/ Contact Bontonfilm, a.s., Pathé International FR
www: www.leschoristes-lefilm.com
Christophe Barratier drew on his own classical music education, gained at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris, for his debut as a director. In 1991 producer Jacques Perrin convinced him to make movies for his production company Galatée Films, to devote himself to film. He made his first short film Les tombales (2001), inspired by a text by Guy de Maupassant, with Lambert Wilson and Carole Weiss in the leading roles. It was selected for the festival in Clermont-Ferrand. Barratier’s feature film debut, Chorists, also originates as a Galatée Films production. In the course of writing and making the film the author was freely inspired by the classic French film A Cage of Nightingales (La cage aux rossignols, 1945, dir. by Jean Dréville); which links the two universal themes that have always interested him: childhood and music.
Bontonfilm, a.s.
Na Poříčí 1047/26, 110 00, Praha 1
Czech Republic
Phone: +420 257 415 111
E-mail: [email protected]
Pathé International FR
2, rue Lamennais, 75008, Paris
France
Phone: +33 1 717 232 30
Fax: +33 1 717 232 60
E-mail: [email protected]
Mayalen de Croisoeuil
Sales Agent
Aleš Danielis
Distributor
Christophe Barratier
Jacques-Eric Strauss
Veronique Bouffard
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