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Ondes de choc – Journal de ma tête

Shock Waves – Diary of My Mind
Panorama Special 2018
© Bande à part Films / Jeanne Lapoirie
On 27 February 2009, pupil Benjamin Feller commits a crime which he has meticulously described beforehand in a diary entry. He goes to the post office to send the diary entry to his teacher before he shoots his parents and turns himself in to the police. His teacher Esther Fontanel tries to understand the events in retrospect. But as the journal’s addressee, she is increasingly targeted by the police herself.
Through her two protagonists, Ursula Meier gently approaches a horrific crime which is placed in the context of literature and creativity at school via the use of flashbacks. Meier has been working together with Kacey Mottet Klein, who plays Benjamin as an inscrutable, fragile youngster, since he appeared in Home (2008) and has even dedicated a short documentary to him (Kacey Mottet Klein, Birth of an Actor). His performance is as tender as that of Fanny Ardant, who plays the teacher. These unequal counterparts circle each other cautiously and insecurely in this cinematic dance of injured souls. Part of a four-part series on true cases.
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by Ursula Meier
with Fanny Ardant, Kacey Mottet Klein, Jean-Philippe Ecoffey, Carlo Brandt, Stéphanie Blanchoud, Jean-Quentin Châtelain Switzerland 2017 French 70’ Colour

With

  • Fanny Ardant (Esther Fontanel)
  • Kacey Mottet Klein (Benjamin Feller)
  • Jean-Philippe Ecoffey (Judge Mathieu)
  • Carlo Brandt (Psychiatrist Butler)
  • Stéphanie Blanchoud (Maître Rayet)
  • Jean-Quentin Châtelain (Pierre Feller)

Crew

Director Ursula Meier
Screenplay Ursula Meier, Antoine Jaccoud
Cinematography Jeanne Lapoirie
Editing Nelly Quettier
Sound Patrick Becker
Producers Lionel Baier, Agnieszka Ramu, Françoise Mayor
Co-Production Arte Straßburg
SRG SSR Bern
Radio Télévision Suisse RTS Genf

Produced by

Bande à part Films

Photos

Press Conference

Ursula Meier

© Raphael Zubler

The French-Swiss filmmaker studied filmmaking in Belgium. She began her directing career with successful short films and documentaries. Her debut feature film, Home, premiered in the 2008 Semaine de la Critique at Cannes, was nominated for three César awards in 2009 and won prizes including the Swiss Film Prize for Best Fiction Film. Sister won the Special Award Silver Bear at the 2012 Berlinale. In 2018, Diary of my Mind, a TV film she made as part of the Shock Waves series inspired by Swiss news stories, screened in the Berlinale Panorama.

Filmography (selection)

1994 Le songe d’Isaac (Isaac’s Dream); short film 1998 Des heures sans sommeil (Sleepless); short film 2000 Autour de Pinget (About Pinget); documentary 2001 Tous à table (Table Manners); short film 2002 Pas les flics, pas les noirs, pas les blancs (Not the Cops, Not the Blacks, Not the Whites); documentary 2008 Home 2012 L’enfant d’en haut (Sister) 2014 Silence Mujo; segment of the episodic film “Bridges of Sarajevo” 2015 Kacey Mottet Klein, Naissance d’un acteur (Kacey Mottet Klein, Birth of an Actor); short film 2018 Ondes de choc – Journal de ma tête (Shock Waves – Diary of My Mind) 2021 La ligne (The Line)

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2022