“I remained a villager”: Jean-Baptiste Durand daydreams from Montpeyroux to Cannes via Le Pouget

Jean-Baptiste Durand assume d’être résté “un villageois” comme il le raconte dans ses films. Midi Libre – GIACOMO ITALIANO

Although he was not destined to do so, the Héraultais de Montpeyroux became a César-winning director with "Dog from the Scrapyard" which recounts the tribulations of idle village friends disturbed by the arrival of a young girl. Return to a journey as atypical as it is extraordinary of a genius who was unaware of himself and who will climb the steps of Cannes.

"I never really dreamed of what happened to me because I didn't even know that you could do this job by director". However, Jean-Baptiste Durand arrived at the top of this art, a little in spite of himself, thanks to an extraordinary directorial talent, full of sensitivity, signed in his first feature film Dog of the Scrapyard, shot in Hérault at Pouget, crowned in March with two Caesars. Including one for him, for a first film and another for the hero of his work, the phenomenon Raphaël Quenard.

For a try, let's admit that it's a masterstroke! But Jean-Baptiste Durand's almost unhealthy modesty could suffer. So let's not insist. Let's rewind the movie. He was born in 1985 in Antibes, passed through a village in Loir-et-Cher before leaving "to reconnect with the roots of the south"&nbsp ;in Montpeyroux with his brother Xavier, for the professional needs of a father who worked in energy savings and a psychologist mother.

A life "in the present"

The Durands will settle down in this charming wine-growing village in the Hérault valley where very good grapes are grown and, for these active young people, a bit of boredom. What the director refutes: "I was 12 years old and that's where my life began. But I don't remember being bored. There was a void perhaps, but our imaginations were running wild and we had lots of laughs", said Jean-Baptiste with the memory of happy, carefree years and do "up and down like all teenagers our age".

Little Durand enjoys this village life "in the present. I don't plan. Which always freaked my mother out a little". He’s someone from the inside, a cerebral person who loves football, rap and friends. "We played like crazy" and on Saturday evenings he went in a group to the stadium, the Mosson stadium, where he went by n& rsquo;any means.

Absolute MHSC fan

Even today, this football fan is unhappy when he cannot see his favorite team: the MHSC. A tribute which delights the president of the club Laurent Nicollin who played the game with the director: "He had asked us for derivative products for his film without imagining that he would have a César. It's crazy but it's nice to see that he's a real enthusiast and that there aren't just Marseille or Paris supporters.

The ultimate tribute was to invite him to kick off the match against Strasbourg at La Mosson: "A consecration" , smiles Jean-Baptiste Durand, a pure and absolutely unbeatable rogue on his orange and blue team.

"Allergic at school"

Return to college which he spends in Gignac where he makes new friends and where he cultivates his love of being "a villager that I am and that I remained". He passes a literary baccalaureate without conviction with 67 points to make up "a miracle" then, because it’s the custom , studies. "I’I was totally allergic to school, apart from drawing, I didn't know how to do anything, although I liked reading. I was a creative, but I didn't really know what to do.

Because he wants to stay in Montpellier, he decides to enter the Beaux-Arts where this designer will discover the video which will ostensibly change his life: " I met my destiny at the Fine Arts, discovering the image, the stories that can be told. I didn't even know you could make a career out of it".

A life at the RSA

The adolescent lymphatic will, from then on, become "a hard worker". Now based in Montpellier in the Boutonnet district, he will tell what he knows best: the life of young people in rural areas, which will be the plot of Dog of the Break: "He made a film that resembles him with great strength and delicacy of his very personal universe of this peripheral zone with a human, attentive approach because he’is someone extremely sensitive", underlines Marin Rosenstiehl of Occitanie Films who was able to accompany the director.

Because it was from Montpeyroux but ultimately shot at Pouget that the César-winning film would become a unique work. "It’it was a slap in the face when we showed the film in the community hall before the preview, remembers the mayor of Pouget Thibault Barral. It tells of a youth which is the one we experienced, like many. There is a great sincerity, this somewhat harsh side in idleness, in dreams that come true or in disillusionment.

"A second school" to learn his trade

At the Beaux-Arts, the man who did not yet know he was a director, "whose cinematographic culture stopped at the films of De Funès" will make decisive encounters, like Dorris Haron Kasco, an Ivorian filmmaker or his idol, the designer Abdelkader Benchamma. When he leaves, he will "a second school" to learn the trade, lives off the RSA and prizes gleaned here and there: "Luckily I have a strong taste for pasta", living "as a roommate in a broken apartment".

But he now knows what he wants to do, learns on set as a technician and has a decisive encounter too "major than ’unlikely& quot;, with the woman who would become its producer Anaïs Bertrand. It was she who spotted him and contacted him via Facebook after loving his drawings on "Google images. He came to Paris to meet me and when he opened the door for the first time, I instantly fell in love. I liked his face. I knew straight away that it was the beginning of a long adventure"», assures the producer who will accompany her for his first short film It came from Romania.

A crazy adventure

It allows him to refine his art, learn how to write a script, and obtain funding to film. The short will be rewarded. He needs a feature film, a 90-page text written in 2010 emerges which is already titled Dog from the Junkyard. The plot is there but there is everything to do. To do again. Anaïs Bertrand follows him instinctively, enrolling him in writing residencies. He obtains aid from the Occitanie Region, the CNC… then a budget of 1.2 M€, to make his film.

The rest we know: a crazy adventure of 25 days of filming at Pouget… then success. Which gave him the freedom to write his second feature film. He already has a title: The man who was afraid of women. And, despite the impatience, the meticulous professional will take his time to refine his second opus which will be eagerly awaited.

Before that, Jean-Baptiste Durand, who is also an actor, will climb the steps of the Cannes festival, which he was unable to do for Junkyard Dog. It will be for his role in Miséricorde by Alain Guiraudie, this Monday. This is where it leads to not having had the dream of being a director.

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