The Hermine: this sordid affair which fueled the film’s storyline

This Sunday, September 24 at 9:10 p.m., France 2 broadcasts the Ermine in which Fabrice Luchini plays a president of an assize court. On the sidelines of filming, director Christian Vincent was inspired by a sordid affair to write his screenplay.

This is certainly one of Fabrice Luchini’s most beautiful compositions on the big screen. In The Ermine broadcast this Sunday, September 24 at 9:10 p.m. on France 2, the actor slips into the guise of Michel Racine, an implacable president of the assize court. “The double-digit President” he is nicknamed, in reference to the heavy length of the sentences he imposes, always more than 10 years. But his daily life changes when his private life catches up with him. During a homicide case, the magistrate finds the juror Ditte Lorensen-Coteret, played by the brilliant Sidse Babett Knudsen, a woman he loved and coveted in the greatest of secrets…

Fabrice Luchini at the top

We no longer present the talent of Fabrice Luchini (who has confessed frankly about his role as father to his daughter Emma), as comfortable on the stage as in front of the cameras. Presented in official competition at the 2015 Venice Film Festival, the film allows the actor to land one of the biggest roles of his already immense career. For his performance, he was awarded the Volpi Cup for the best male performance. Director Christian Vincent receives the prize for best screenplay. In 2016, at the Césars, Luchini was nominated for best actor while Danish actress Sidse Babett Knudsen won the César for best supporting actress.

A film inspired by true events

To write the script for the film, Christian Vincent carried out extensive research and documentation beforehand. To immerse himself in the judicial world which was then unknown to him, he went to the Bobigny court to attend a trial.where four young men were accused of gang rape in a trash room“, remembers the director. “Despite the closed session, with the agreement of the parties, I was able to attend the trial ‘court side’, like any student magistrate. Each time the session was suspended, I accompanied the President, his two assessor judges, his clerk and the nine jurors in what we could call backstage. I saw the jurors asking questions of the magistrates, getting to know each other, talking among themselves about what they had heard. I saw magistrates attentive to their requests, answering each of their questions, all this for five days… And then I immediately repeated the experience, this time at the Paris Assize Court. A young man was accused of having slit the throat of his lover. From there I could start writing. I had the elements that allowed me to do it. For the film to be fair, the documentary part had to be fair.” he testifies in the press kit.