This (above) is the director, Romain Cogitore, a 25 year old/young man, creating his first feature film, 'Nos résistances'.He was invited to Cinéma Lux by the cinéma supervisor, Didier Godet, to introduce his film and speak about the process behind the making of the film. It had started when he - at the age of 19 - found a photo of his grandfather as an equally young man, surrounded by other young men, all of them being armed.
He asked his grandfather who they all were and the latter told him about the resistance movement in France among young men and boys.
As Cogitore points out, one often, in film, depict and tell the story about the resistance movement among adults (heroic men and women), forgetting that there were many young men/boys and some young women - more or less - trained to fight against the Nazi government during the Second World War.
Cogitore found this very interesting, not least as most of the films made about the Second World War and the resistance movement(s) often display these men and women as being fearless and idealistic, knowing exactly what to do in each and every moment, who they fight against and why.
The young men we get to meet in this film - something being confirmed by Cogitore's grandfather - are political virgins, not even knowing who De Gaulle is/was. They are fighting for a small piece of land, or at the most a landscape, but being more of boy scouts than soldiers and very ambivalent about their mission and the goal of their fight.
In this film the story circles around Racine (François Civil) and his 'boyish' innocence when it comes to the war and its atrocities.
Racine has a girl friend he is forced to leave when joining a 'youth resistance group' in the forests. There he tries to help them with rudimentary medical treatment being trained as a 'secourist'/help worker with basic knowledge about health care.
When arriving he is very enthusiastic but confronted with the 'real world' of war, he realizes that this is no game and that he might not be up to the task.
The leaders of the group - two adult soldiers - confiscate his papers and prevent him from returning back to his village.
Being stopped also by the other youth soldiers, not least Le bourreau (Grégoire Colin) - who is one of the toughest young men and at the same time very fond of Zozo (Grégory Gatignol) who is the wounded friend Racine is supposed to help - he stays on but later tries to escape.
When almost succeeding in escaping he has to return to the camp for other reasons.
The title - 'Our Resistances' - is of course very well chosen as it's a story not only about the Resistance Movement but all the 'opposition' Racine is faced with when trying to get back to his girlfriend and a 'normal life'.
It's a question about both physical and mental obstacles.
As a whole this is a very good film, not least taking into consideration that this is Cogitore's first feature film.
A very mature oeuvre, making it obvious that he had a clear idea of what he wanted to create before starting to work on his film.
We will probably hear more from this young director in the future.
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