Commune Présence

"Lost battles can't be measured, yet the unforgettable memory of waged struggles remains."

Michaël Dacheux's first film tells the story of a cluttered house: the heartfelt fragments of the collected or dreamt past lives of Roger Daubon, a close friend of the filmmaker, and an activist involved in the French civil unrest of the 70s. At the heart of the film, an old letter addressed to the filmmaker gradually weaves a singular path in his mind, between a quest for an elusive memory, a solitary trek to the heart of the moors, and an impossible reconciliation with his own past. As the director's alter ego, the handsome character Yann plays a Rohmerian photographer and inquisitor, a listener not so far removed from Alain Guiraudie's Rabalaïre, who patiently collects and elaborates his project like a secret vacation notebook. Multiplying the modes of production - video, archives, Super 8 footage, live performances, direct cinema, or interviews -  Michael Dacheux guides his film between temporalities and reminiscences, in search of a fragile balance that reveals, behind the homage to the lost friend, the portrait of a generation struggling to reconcile the path of intimacy with that of the collective momentum.  Subtle and fascinating, his destination-less journey conjures an authentic and precious cinematic territory: regardless of the destination, we meet art along the road trails and detours.

Terence Chotard
Filmmaker