Thibaut de Longeville, director of DJ Mehdi. Made in France (Best Documentary Series Award at Canneseries in April), warns from the first images: Mehdi Faveris-Essadi was his best friend, the one with whom he could spend hours talking about a record or a film they had seen together. For example, Buenavista Social Club (1999), by Wim Wenders, about Cuban music, or Lords of Dogtown (2004), by Catherine Hardwicke, about surfing and skating, which inspired her series.
This is the first pitfall the director had to avoid: proximity to the subject and the risk of a laudatory story in which viewers could get lost: “I wanted a narrative with pivotal moments.explains, which makes it clear that, in his music, he had a real impact on culture in France but also elsewhere, regardless of my desire to pay tribute to my friend, who had a moderate interest. »
An objective quite achieved without even having to interview outside observers, such as journalists or musicologists. But by letting those closest to him speak: DJ Mehdi’s family (his mother, his cousin, his wife), his musician and DJ friends (M and Pedro Winter), or directors, such as Romain Gavras. Kery James admits that his DJ was his breath of fresh air: ” Us [les rappeurs de Mafia K’1 Fry], We were prisoners of the city’s codes, we had to act tough, we had to survive. The only time I was myself was when I was with Mehdi. »
Passion and pedagogy
Using his own archives, DJ Mehdi was the one who encouraged Thibaut de Longeville to film his group Ideal J’s concert at the Elysée Montmartre in Paris in 1999, or to document all his studio sessions for his first solo album. (The story of) spyReleased in 2002, the director has created a series of six fascinating episodes, using audio, video and press clippings from specialist journalists, artistic directors such as Nathalie Canguilhem and cameramen such as Jérôme Thomas.
DJ Mehdi. Made in France The series tells the story of the excitement of two musical scenes, where many curious young people were navigating, like the DJ from Gennevilliers (Hauts-de-Seine). The other pitfall that this series avoids is also the boredom that is often caused, in musical films, by the sequences in the recording studios, which are often botched. Creating a piece of rap or electronic music is, in fact, most of the time, a technical, tedious and sometimes repetitive process.
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