Suspendu (2015)

• 63%
• 2015
• Drama
• Elie Grappe
• Max Ricat
• Julia Petit
• Erwan Jeammot

At dawn, in a great classical dance conservatory, a boy falls while rehearsing some movements. Something breaks in his foot, causing sharp pain. The exams are held today but the boy doesn't give up: he tries to face his dance partner and classmates, convincing himself his body has no limits. Through Suspendu, I wanted to tell a story of transcendence. I had to go back into my personal experiences of classical dance and the Conservatory of Lyon where I practiced music intensively. The film's form is a sensory immersion, raw with minimal dialogue, seen from the point of view of a passionate young dancer struggling with his body. It also represents a fragment of adolescence: the bodies surrounding the character are both work tools shaped by dancing and strange objects of desire. His own body seems marked by an uncontrollable muscle growth; this is a wild and new development he tries to overcome. I wanted the casting process to go hand in hand with the writing process, almost like a documentary approach. The main performers are actually young students in important conservatories. Although fiction, the film is also built around their personalities.