Synopsis
Romain Goupil was born with a camera in his hand. With this camera, he films everything: the stories he invents and his life that he stages. As he develops a taste for political action, Romain Goupil continues to film everything: the activists, the encounters, the protests. He meets Michel Recanati, a passionate activist. A deep friendship is born between these two young high school students who believe in the possibility of a new world. Mourir à trente ans or the story of two passions: cinema and politics. Two passions that oppose each other, two passions that develop together. Half a Life or the desire to create meaning from all these images, from all these films accumulated over the years. Perhaps to find Michel again.
A word from Tënk
As a reminder not to forget that the struggles inscribed in collective memory emerge primarily from the intimate, that they unfolded and then mutated, first and foremost, through relationships and interactions, at the intersection of promises and idealizations. We can imagine them, guess them underlying the creation of movements, but there are few media that allow us to apprehend them. Half a Life is the biography of Michel Recanati, but it is also the story of a friendship born through and for activism while representing a collection of fragments from an era marked by a breath of revolt. The whole interlocks; it's impossible to dissociate these different narrative layers – and it would be so absurd. Yet historical facts are generally kept at a distance, presented in a neutral appearance, although what constitutes our past results from the meeting of a multiplicity of subjectivities. Here, and notably due to the posture and approach guided by Romain Goupil, we discover the jolts, illusions, ideological doubts, and detours of a quest that is far from linear.
Yulia Kaiava
Tënk's editorial assistant
To explore further, watch Les Lycéens ont la parole, an interview between Marguerite Duras and 16-year-old Romain Goupil.
