Sandrine Bonnaire is the president of the jury for the La Rochelle TV Fiction Festival, which takes place from September 13 to 18, 2022. She spoke to us enthusiastically about her role as jury president, her tastes in television, her production projects but also of its production structure.
Sandrine Bonnaire takes her role as president of the jury to heart
For the 2022 edition of the La Rochelle TV Fiction Festival, Sandrine Bonnaire succeeds Guillaume de Tonquédec and takes on the role of president of the jury. Actress, screenwriter, but also director, it is she who will judge the many fictions in competition. Meet.
Her role as president :
I am honored to be president of a television jury for the first time. I really enjoy discovering films that I wouldn’t necessarily see in real life, because I don’t always have the time. I find it enriching to discover authors, actors, forms of work. As president, I think thatwe have a responsibility when we reward certain works.



Having already been president of the jury, I think there are obvious, films that really fit in, but it becomes complicated and painful to choose from among the beautiful things on offer, and I think that will be the case. But a presidency is above all democracy. We are going to make appointments to already eliminate the fictions that we do not like because without hiding the face, there are in all the selections of films to which we are not sensitive. But we must also take into account film gestation time that make their way within us.
What she likes in a work of fiction :
The usefulness of a film, on television or at the cinema, or of a series, beyond entertainment, is to educate us or create emotions, of the order of laughter or tears. I will attach myself with the members of the jury to the substance of the subject, but also to its form, the writing, the staging. Without having a moralistic side, I find that certain programs proposed often think too much in the place of the spectators, and don’t trust them enough. When we try to solicit too much or to seduce too much, the result is too formatted. I am absolutely not sensitive to these forms of creation, they even make me angry.
The importance of the awards she received as an actress :
You shouldn’t do this job expecting it, but it’s always rewarding and honorary to receive a prize. Rewards are useful for works because they allow them to be brought to light, even if it is sometimes a double-edged sword.
About his choice of roles, the balance between popular cinema and auteur cinema :
I was one of the first actresses in 1996 to do television with the series A woman in white, which had a huge success on France 2. At the time there was snobbery on the part of the cinema. We considered lower quality television. I was asked if I was doing a series because I needed the money! Today, that no longer means anything and I still do television (Editor’s note: it will be in The Fighters presented out of selection at the fiction festival).



On the register of comedy or romantic comedy in which we have seen little :
I seem like a nerd actress but not at all, I love comedy, like Santa Clause is garbage, Freinds, Dany Boon, Franck Dubosc. I love Belgian humor, Kervern, Delepine, Benoit Mariage. But it’s a real paradox for me, because they say that i make dark movies and people keep talking to me about my smile. It’s not that I absolutely want to do comedies, I work more for the good roles that I’m offered. I have already refused certain comedies, I didn’t want to see myself in it or go see them. It is above all the writing that must be funny in comedy, the actors are there to perform roles.
His projects:
For television, I’m going to make a mini-series in which I’m going to star, with my eldest daughter Jeanne who will be me young. It is an adaptation of the book The underside of candles by Valérie Hervo, produced by Fabienne Servan-Schreiber. For the cinema, I will direct The Sound of Silencewhich I co-wrote with a Belgian screenwriter, on births under X, and which will be produced by Dominique Besnehard. I also want to make a documentary.
Its production structure :
With my daughter Jeanne, we created To Our Loves Productions, production company for short film formats. It’s not so much to produce our own projects but to produce and support young authors and…