The filming of the series “Minor Offenses”, which unfolds around teenagers in the grip of justice, has just been completed in Geneva. The young actors testify to their work to slip into the skin of their character.
Juvenile Court, Geneva. Three women, played by actresses Marie Gillain, Noémie Schmidt and Assa Sylla, try to help teenagers who have committed crimes and, more specifically, young Malik, imprisoned for a dark affair. What choice should be made? Lock up or trust?
This is where the whole challenge of the series “Minor Offenses” lies, co-written and directed by Nicole Borgeat, whose filming ended last September. The investigation takes place over all the episodes, raising questions around prostitution, clandestinity, parental abandonment and incest. The broadcast of this RTS co-production is scheduled for fall 2023.
A virtual casting
To embody the roles of four teenagers in the grip of juvenile justice, Nicole Borgeat launched a casting call on social networks. With success: more than 900 young Romands responded. “I chose young people who gave off something very intense. (…) They moved me and I needed that to want to film them. They are all totally miraculous!”, says the director in the program “Ramdam” of the RTS.
>> To see: the interview with Nicole Borgeat who tells how she co-wrote and directed the series
To make them work at their best, she enlisted the services of a coach, who put them in condition, made them think about the character’s past and allowed them to be emotionally charged. “She does a job that I think is very important: that young people are able to tell the difference between who they are in real life and who they are on the show. Because they play things on the show that are very intense. In working on the imagination, it allowed them not to feel affected in their own emotions”, says Nicole Borgeat, for whom it was essential that young people leave filming without having the impression of having gone through things too hard for them. them.
An imaginary to protect oneself
Contrary to the system advocated by the Actors Studio, which asks the actor to draw on his own emotions and his experience to reproduce his experiences, the method used on the set of “Minor Offenses” creates an imaginary world around the actor. , which draws from an environment that is not its own and allows it to preserve itself.
“With the help of our coach, I wrote letters that spoke about the traumas of my character. Rereading them before shooting helped me to immerse myself in my role”, testifies Juliana Vieira Guerra, who plays the role of Loredana , a volcanic young woman who dabbles in alcohol, drugs and prostitution.
“I don’t identify with my character because we have different personalities, but his situation touches me, because it is concrete, it really happens”, continues Elias Palma, who plays Santiago, a young undocumented person who faces the injustice of not being able to start an apprenticeship because of one’s status. “He’s not a thug, he’s just someone who isn’t too lucky. (…) He could have been a friend of mine”.
TV Subject: Joëlle Rebetez and Rayane M’Zouri
Adaptation web: Melissa Hartel