15/03/2022 - Frédéric Choffat’s latest feature places us up close and personal with a generation who are fighting to survive in a world that’s falling apart

Three years after the very moving My Little One [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], which was directed in league with Julie Gilbert and saw Frédéric Choffat telling a story of love and redemption in the middle of the Arizona desert, it’s Switzerland and more specifically the director’s family who now form the focus of his gaze. His latest feature It All Begins, which was presented in a world premiere at the 2022 Solothurn Film Festival and more recently at Geneva’s FIFDH (competing in the Grand Reportage line-up), is presented as a universal tale which speaks to humanity as a whole, but also an intimate story about a family who share personal passions and concerns which fast become universal.

After three years of shooting and an impossible number of twists and turns (Covid, first and foremost), Frédéric Choffat is finally presenting the fruits of his labour, a meticulous work in which five youngsters face up to problems which feel bigger than they are. In fact, it was three years ago that the famous Generation Z started taking over public spaces, protesting in favour of the climate and trying in their own way to raise society’s awareness of the ever-more crucial climate emergency. There were numerous demonstrations in Switzerland too, led by an especially united and motivated group of youngsters who set about questioning the entire social system (the banking system included). But just as their voices were (finally) on the verge of being listened to, the arrival of the Coronavirus pandemic unexpectedly clipped their wings. It All Begins follows these activists up close (very close, even), from the intoxicating euphoria of the early days when each and every protest seemed to have the power of bringing about change, to the social apathy brought about by the health crisis, an apathy which seemingly reduces their cries to silence.

Frédéric Choffat pushes us to question our relationship with a world which appears on the point of implosion. Is it still possible to dream of a better future together, a future where respect for nature goes hand in hand with tolerance between human beings? In addition to interviews (which are also very personal) with his own adolescent, activist children (Solal and Lucìa), the director offers up an insider’s reflection on Swiss youth (among other things) who still believe in and fight for their ideals, despite the climate crisis and the pandemic. Is it still possible to dream of a world where humanity struggles for equality rather than for profit or other selfish motives?

The first half of the film sees the director filming his young heroes and heroines with an admiring and, sometimes, overly ingenious eye, but the second half endows the film with the ambiguity required to elevate the movie beyond a sterile apologia. Indeed, it’s in this second part, cut through by the health crisis, that these young militants begin to speak more freely and that the overall film is buoyed by a healthy dose of Baudelairean melancholy. The discourse on the climate crisis becomes the linchpin around which all other worries revolve, such as the lack of alternative models, the need to carry on despite an increasingly uncertain future, and the anger these youngsters feel in the face of an adult world which doesn’t seem to realise the dangers posed by a society which is clinging with all its might onto its own (decayed) paradigms.

It’s true that these incredibly complex issues are best tackled in their many varied nuances (the fight for the climate but also against racism, homophobia, transphobia…), but It All Begins does nevertheless show us a movement from the inside: the climate movement, which we often tend to observe with too much detachment, as if it were a simple “fad of youth”.

It All Begins is produced by Geneva’s Close Up (who also hold international rights to the film) in co-production with Les films du tigre.

(Translated from Italian)