Available on Disney+, “Oussekine” looks back on the Malik Oussekine case by painting an intimate portrait of the young man and his family. His sister Sarah as well as his brothers Mohamed and Ben Amar were of invaluable support for the creator and his co-writers during the writing phase.
Oussekine: a heartbreaking drama
On the night of December 5 to 6, 1986, while returning from a Nina Simone concert given in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Malik Oussekine died under the blows of police acrobats responsible for repelling students who were demonstrating against the Devaquet law of the Chirac government.
Created by Antoine Chevrollier, the series Oussekine looks back on the death of the young man at the age of 22. Made of four episodes the program sails through time, alternating between this dramatic event, the trial that followed, and also Malik’s childhood.
An intimate and moving portrait of a united family, Oussekine benefits from straight writing, an impeccable reconstruction, an inspired staging, and a perfect interpretation. While Sayyid El Alami manages to shine in a few scenes in the skin of Malik, Mouna Soualem, Malek Lamraoui, Tewfik Jallab, Naidra Ayadi, Hiam Abbass, and Slimane Dazi all deliver a poignant composition in the roles of those close to him.
“We had to get closer to them”
On the occasion of the release ofOussekine, we had the chance to meet the director and showrunner of the series Antoine Chevrollier, as well as his co-screenwriters Faïza Guène, Julien Lilti, Cédric Ido, and Lina Soualem. As soon as the creator of the program learned that his project could see the light of day, he contacted Sarah (Mouna Soualem), Ben Amar (Malek Lamraoui), and Mohamed Oussekine (Tewfik Jallab):
From the moment we knew that the series was going to be made, I launched leads to find their trace, because they had somewhat disappeared.
For Antoine Chevrollier and his team, this rapprochement was essential :
I don’t think we were looking for permission, but it was a moral place. We were going to tell their story, we were going to tell their intimacy, we were going to tell their fight. We had to get closer to them. Very sincerely, I hadn’t planned anything from this meeting, apart from looking them in the eye and saying to them: “Here, I’m going to tell this story”.
Faïza Guène adds on this subject:
It’s the difference between the permission and the blessing, because you can do without the permission but it was hard to do without the blessing.
Malik’s family involved in the project
Malik Oussekine’s two brothers and sister were of great help to authors in their research and writing process. The showrunner assures:
Turns out we bonded. A bond of trust. They brought us much more than we could have hoped for and in a very very generous way.
Julien Lilti specifies:
They enormously nourished the story with their trust, everything they told us, about what they had experienced, who Malik was, what a young man he was. It eventually became almost the main source of our series.
Oussekine is to discover on Disney+.
