After “Neither judge nor submitted”, César for Best Documentary in 2019, discover “Chicken Fries”, the 2nd film from the directors of “Strip-tease”, at the cinema this Wednesday.
4 years later Neither judge nor submissiveCésar for best documentary in 2019, Belgian directors John Libon and Yves Hinant come back with Chicken fries. In this second feature film Strip-tease we find the judge Anne Gruwez, central character of the first film.
This true story worthy of a thriller plunges the viewer into heart of the investigation by Jean-Michel Le Moine and his team to find Kalika’s murderer. If everything seems to accuse his spouse, the investigation will show that a fry can change everything (especially in Belgium)…
A true thriller
In line with the hit Belgian show Striptease broadcast on France 3, this black & white documentary has nothing to envy to a fiction. Taking up the construction of a thriller, the film plunges the viewer into the heart of an investigation. We follow the reflections of the police and the indescribable judge, the searches, the discussions with the accused…
The viewer conducts the investigation alongside the brigadiers and gradually discovers colorful characters who could have been scripted as certain situations ready to laugh.
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Jean-Michel Lemoine and Judge Anne Gruwez
For directors, in a thriller: “The criminal doesn’t matter, as long as those who track him are passionate about his profile.“. And the Brussels Inspector Jean-Michel Lemoine and his team are clearly invested in their investigation into the assassination of Kalika, who was stabbed to death in her home.
If everything points to her spouse, a drug addict who lives in the same building and whose only line of defense is ”If I had killed her, I would still remember it !”, the brigade will go beyond appearances. The investigators here show great humanity and believe in the word of the accused.
Striptease on the big screen
Launched in Belgium in 1985, Striptease is a documentary television program created by Jean Libon and Marco Lamensch and shows moments of daily life in which viewers can recognize themselves.
For more than thirty-five years, the program, without an interview or voice-over, offered to “undress France and Belgium”. become cult, Striptease drew its influence from Italian social comedy sketches and made television history. The show ended in 2012.
The creators managed to get the funny out of sometimes tragic situations. And Poulet Frites is the worthy heir. We let ourselves be caught up in this Belgian social tragedy, sometimes cruel, sometimes funny but always sincere.
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Jean Michel Lemoine
Film the real
The producers Bertrand Faivre and Francois Clerc point out in the film’s press kit: “IIt is always very difficult for a work to change its nature. Novels are not always sublimated by their cinematographic or theatrical adaptations, TV magazines do not always convert harmoniously into feature films (…).
In Strip-tease, reality leads the dance. Nothing is written in advance. We can certainly determine the environment that we will try to undress, but that’s about all...”
It is therefore necessary to agree to put down his camera and follow an investigation which, perhaps, will not succeed since nothing is written in advance. And the formula has already proven itself on the big screen since Neither Judge nor submissivereleased in February 2018 (and available on Netflix), totaled 203,000 admissions at the French box office and won the César and Magritte awards for Best Documentary in 2019.
Chicken Fries comes out this Wednesday in our theaters.