La Ville des zizis

With a strange emotion, half horror and half tenderness, Eline Schumacher decides to bring together the gang of her father’s six best friends at his fictional funeral.

At first afflicted by grief and the emptiness left by their alter ego, the six are quick to shift gears and to answer the call of life, over the half-buried memories and secrets revealed. In suits, then in football strips, fatigues or underwear, the acolytes of different ages and profiles get their shirts wet and strip them off, go wild, catapult each other, and kick their legs up, accompanied by an explosive play of coloured lights.

Partners in crime, often framed by Eline Schumacher, the actors Léonard Cornevin, Adrien Drumel, Thierry Hellin, Lucas Meister, Jean-Baptiste Polge, Michel Villée begin a hilarious epic. Shot through with cult references, from western to pop culture through the greatest war films, La Ville des zizis (“Willy Town”) offers a low-angle shot which fades through universes, each more cinematic than the last.

The friends play with clichés about men among themselves in a playground atmosphere. Fear of the void rubs shoulders with modesty to torpedo gender stereotypes. Their schoolboy humour – without vulgarity – probes masculinity, demonstrates its weaknesses and brings out emotion. Bursts of laughter! It resembles the great moments of existence.

Production Mars-Mons arts de la scène