Artus changes register with La Pampa, the strong first film from the Oussekine director [bande-annonce]

Antoine Chevrollier had already directed the creator of Un p'tit truc en plus in The Office of Legends.

Willy (Sayyid Alami) and Jojo (Amaury Foucher) are childhood friends and never leave each other's side.

To kill boredom, they train at Pampa, a motocross field.

One evening, Willy discovers Jojo's secret.

Last May, Artus had caused a stir by climbing the steps of the Cannes Film Festival with his team ofA little something extra. His comedy was not in competition, but it was already becoming a phenomenon, and this summer it ended up crossing the 10 million admissions mark.

At the same time, the actor and director presented another first film at La Semaine de la Critique, The PampaofAntoine Chevrollier. A director he already knew from his experience on the hit series The Legends Officeand who also participated in OussekineDisney+'s acclaimed four-part drama.

Cannes 2024: The joyful red carpet of Artus and his Un p’tit something extra team [photos]

With The Pampawhich follows two childhood friends who are motocross fans growing up in the countryside, “the director portrays a society whose very ramifications are poisoned by violence, just as in Oussekinethe mini-series that made him known, we wrote after its discovery at the Champs-Elysées festival. Along the roads of Longué – his own original countryside – in wasteland, from abandoned hospital to improvised squat, and above all, launched at high speed, his characters remain in place, prisoners of an irrepressible glass ceiling .”

We won't spoil the duo's secret here, which the trailer manages to evoke without ever completely revealing it. Just know that The Pampa hits the mark, certainly because its creator recounts his own youth, but also thanks to its line-up of actors who are all up to the task.

“Beyond a solar film despite its subject, and beautiful, both in its form and in its substance, Antoine Chevrollier signs above all an exercise in the direction of actors which fundamentally hits the mark, we also wrote in our critical. Whether it is young people, Sayyid El Alami (who already played the main role in Oussekine), Amaury Foucher And Léonie Dahan-Lamort (who recently played the lead role in The Bite) or adults, Artus, Damien Bonnard, Florence Janasall the actors manage to express this je ne sais quoi of complexity, of nuance, necessary for the treatment of adolescent despair at its most tragic.”

The Pampa will be released in theaters on February 5.

Léonie Dahan-Lemort, from La Bite à La Pampa