Mischka, the closing film of the festival, is appealing and idiosyncratic, fairly anarchic and committed. It is only the third film by JeanFrançois Stévenin. He made his début in 1979 with Le passemontagne and performed as an actor in almost seventy films, including those by François Truffaut (e.g. La nuit américaine, screened in this year’s Looking Glass programme) and Jacques Rivette (Le pont du nord).JeanPaul Roussillon (an actor since 1950) plays the lead in Mischka. When we first see him, he is in a dressing gown in the boot of his son’s family car: just like the rest of French population, they are heading South at the start of the summer. At a stopping place on the motorway, they lose him, which is quite convenient for the son: he most wants to spend the holiday peacefully with his wife. Mischka ends up in a (scary) oldpeople’s home, but fortunately not for long. A nurse (Stévenin himself) suggests that the old man should play his father. That is the start of a ‘roadmovie’ in which four people are united by chance: the old Mischka, his nurse, a runaway teenager and rock star JoliCoeur (Rona Hartner). Three days to find out the difference between the family you are born in and the friends you choose. Including a performance by Johnny Halliday luimême.
