A DIFFICULT YEAR

Between activism and egoism

When Albert and Bruno, both compulsive spenders and in debt up to their necks, turn to community workers to get a grip on their lives, they run into a group of young green activists. Lured by the free beer and crisps rather than by the ideals of these eco-activists, Albert and Bruno find themselves joining the movement without much conviction.

During COVID, we were writing a film that we set aside, because this image of the entire world put on pause, this total stoppage of machinery, as if we’d been punished, intrigued us too much. You’re no longer moving, no longer going out, you don’t see your friends. You start thinking. Well, maybe we could have talked about this with a shrink, but we made it into a film instead! Also because a political and media mantra was emerging then: the world after. The place where everything will change, a world that won’t have the same rules anymore. They told us that air traffic had reached saturation, that the earth was finally breathing, that animals were coming back to the cities… All these questions arrived at that moment… and left as quickly as they’d arrived! When we live through major events, there are experts to explain where we’re at, and artists to interrogate the moment. We wanted to make a sort of Italian comedy, grating, that would bother people a little, that shakes things up and questions. What is the link between consumerism and ecology? Can those who are in the red financially and those who strive for minimalism ever meet? And in a very pragmatic way, we saw a video by Extinction Rebellion with young people stopping customers from running toward Black Friday sales. An almost animalistic picture of society where people push each other one way and another. Not a period film, but a film of the period.

Eric Toledano