Seventeen

By Didier Nion
Image

                                                                 ©.Mille et Une. Films / ARTE France

 

2003 • Documentary • 82'

author-director Didier Nion • director of photography Didier Nion • sound Pascale Mons • editing Catherine Zins • sound editing Jean Mallet

 

Jean-Benoît is seventeen and lives with his mother in the suburbs of Rouen. When he was twelve, his father unexpectedly committed suicide. As a vulnerable adolescent, threatened by temptations of self-destruction and irresolute half measures, he is permanently on the razor’s edge. At the end of the summer, he embarks on an apprenticeship to be a mechanic — a promise he wants to keep for his father’s sake: with a trade, to prove himself and make something of himself. But Jean-Benoît is faced with more than one apprenticeship. His meeting with a young woman, Héléna, with whom he discovers love and kindness, comes up against the abdication of parental responsibility and violence of a mother. And he also has to settle into life in the garage, among men.

Filmed over three years, the film is part of the process and becomes a place of learning and reflection in its own right. By confronting Jean-Benoît with his own image, it becomes a relay and gives him the means to act. Work carried out in common, to recreate the difficulty and delicacy of becoming an adult.


 

Coproduction .Mille et Une. Films / ARTE France

With CNC / Procirep / Ministère des Affaires Sociales, du Travail et de la Solidarité/ Pôle Image Haute-Normandie / Atelier de production Centre-Val-de-Loire / Ville de Canteleu / Région Bretagne.

Distribution TV : Andana Films