LETTERS

Extracts from a letter from Gilles Jacob about Tengri le bleu du ciel

With Tengri, you have something precious and rare. Far from folklore, epic and modern at the same time, your story is universal. You don’t want gimmicks or cheap tricks. The characters are so strongly embodied that they quickly become familiar to us, while retaining their element of mystery. This truth about people is one of the great successes of your beautiful project. You’re not giving a moralizing speech about the disappearance of a lost Eden or the corruption of good savages by the West. You speak of the complexity of the world, its paradoxes and its beauty, through a destiny in love. You give the details of everyday life the same prominence as the great dramatic thrusts that drive your storytelling.
It’s this care and precision that makes things so alive, so human. I loved feeling the sensuality of the bodies, hearing the lovers’ songs carried by the wind across the steppe (what can I say, I love lovers!)… sharing their lives, galloping with them on the horses of freedom (I know, all this makes me sound a bit lyrical)…

I send you my love.

Gilles Jacob
President of the Cannes Film Festival

SMS from Isabelle Adjani about Tengri le bleu du ciel

It’s beautiful and sad, Marie between a tale and the discovery of an ethnic group…
Pure and wild…
Your heroine looks just like you.
A steppe western, with some very moving scenes…
Bravo for this fine, solitary work of fiction, with the hunt and madness of the haters of all times, women and love, the enemies of fundamentalism. I hope luck will smile on this magnificent and essential film…
For a blue sky…
Kisses to you, my wonderful, sweet fighter.

Isabelle Adjani
French actress

SMS from Charlotte Rampling about Tengri le bleu du ciel

Beautiful, simple, true, spellbinding, the magnificent ending in the snow.
A deep breath.
Love,

Charlotte Rampling
Franco-British actress

“There’s something tactile about this whole experience…
A way to vibrate with the spirits of heaven and earth. In this film, there’s another space-time, a rich force and life of nature.
And then there’s the love of an old man and a child… This unique relationship, so forgotten and yet so tender.
All children could feel for their grandparents, or their teacher when they’re ready to give too, that simple yet powerful love that can light up a whole life.”
Laure Adler

Excerpt from Olga Morel’s letter about Tengri le bleu du ciel

Dear Marie,

I wanted to tell you how much I loved your film, Tengri-Le Bleu du Ciel, and admired your artistry and penetration.
You speak so well with your camera about this beautiful and little-known country (the listener’s questions made it clear!).
It’s a love story first and foremost, and so beautiful and so sad. Thank you for leaving it in a kind of indeterminacy: we know they’re dead, but the last images are triumphant and joyful.
It’s also a film that says so much about Kirghizia today: about religion, society, gender relations, relations with Russia, etc…
As far as religion is concerned, it is a land of Islam, but Soviet Islam, although it survived underground, underwent massive eradication in the 20s, with immense consequences (beliefs, emancipation of women, etc.).
So these men “back from the war” try, more or less successfully, to impose a newly learned Islamic practice that doesn’t “take” (alcohol, male-female relations, bigotry, literalism).
This rediscovery of Islam is based on identity, is intended to be radical, and is perceived and experienced as social repression. […]

Olga Morel
French Ambassador

Letter from Jean Daniel to Marie Jaoul de Poncheville concerning the screenplay for “SARAN, jeune-fille mongole”.

My dear Marie

I’ve read your new work.
“SARAN, jeune-fille mongole” (SARAN, Mongolian maiden) fascinated me.
Once again, you take us to the end of the world and the end of ourselves. It’s your gift to transport us to extremes while reaching the intimate, the familiar and the universal…

In fact, for me, that’s what cinema is all about.
Bringing the particular to life so intensely that we immerse ourselves in the universal.

What I like so much about your script is that it took me to a country I didn’t know and made me feel like I was traveling with you. A great discovery!

Your characters are human and endearing, and become part of our family. I see, as if I were there, this capital made of immense buildings towering over houses built in the Russian era, these thousands of yurts surrounding the capital, full of men, women and children in search of survival and work, this infernal pollution suffocating its inhabitants, this blatant luxury mixed with this desperate poverty, the traffic jams, the insalubrity… And then suddenly the green steppe, its flowers or its drought, the rivers, then the vision of these solitary horsemen galloping along the horizon. This reading threw me into a dream of lost and dazzling beauty, but also of great sadness.
Will no country escape the madness of man?
This young girl’s story is moving and touched me deeply.

Your scenario reminded me so violently of the injustice of the whole world towards women, of our unfulfilled duty of responsibility, of our shameful cowardice.

And this film will be a philosophical one. For he rightly and clearly states that freedom begins and is acquired only after one has renounced one’s desires to make room for the great desire that is life, one’s own life.

It reveals human folly and greed, but also beauty, joy and hope.
Saran is on its way…
She’s going to live her life.

The film makes it clear that it’s only through a lot of hardship that a little light may appear.
At the end of the tunnel…
Perhaps…

You know I’m a devotee of your films, each of which has reminded me of lost emotions, of a possible human spirituality and given me great joy.
They are forever inscribed in my memory…
They’re like no other. They upset people. That’s your talent, Marie…
Thank you for this beautiful scenario.

I kiss you.
I forgot to tell you:
What a lucky girl Saran was to have this woman-shaman on her path, who dared to give her building set a big kick and demolish it (her set, of course!).
This woman was her chance!

Jean Daniel
LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR

Letter from Réginald Huguenin about SARAN

It’s a beautiful and sad story, that of men! Although they have written many fine pages, today we are witnessing such revolting reductions and simplifications… that we often lose hope…
The West’s colonial past has long held cultures other than its own in contempt….and yet….
What would the West be if other men and other cultures hadn’t educated it……
The history of civilizations and thought should be our pride……This is the history of humanity. And every day she loses a little more…
What do we hear today, for example, of the Islam of the Enlightenment…?
Here, as is often the case today, we’re talking about knowledge that’s disappearing ….

Through the story of this young Mongolian girl, you tell us about a whole part of human history that is sinking into the throes of greed and profit…..This is why this film must exist, beyond this new eco-gluten-free fad (which you mention in your script), which makes no sense if it is not linked first and foremost to a profound transformation in man’s attitude towards his fellow man. The desire to learn and pass on, the desire to evolve, sharing, respect, solidarity and loyalty.
There is a strong global pressure that threatens, if it has not already done so, to make us lose our quality of free man, our own history and our culture……

Amazon Indians have been crying out for help for a long time now…..

Your character Saran is a beautiful portrait of a woman who goes through trials and feels closer and closer to herself. The greedy men who have exploited her and turned her into a commodity are gradually losing their power over her.
The beauty of it is that, by the end of the film, she understands that her life will only be possible when she has shed the mirages of money, ill-gotten power and fame, and finally has access to herself, stripped bare and ready to live her own life.

This film is universal, profoundly instructive and, at the same time, right and close to you.
In an intelligent and spiritual awareness …

This is what this film project proposes……. a protest, an anger, essential and vital for our future and love, damn it!

Thank you, Marie, for trying to contribute to this revelation, and for being in the line of those who have tried, and sometimes still try, to fight to stay awake and confident in the human being. Rediscover the joy of knowing deep down that you are unique and free to recreate yourself every day in the infinite philosophical and spiritual questioning…
There will never be enough of us to make the choice to live a good life.

Réginald Huguenin
Theater actor