Accused of advocating urban rodeos, the director of “Rodeo” explains

Lola Quivoron breaks the silence. Although his first feature film Rodeoin the middle of bitumen crossing is receiving a trailer, the 33-year-old director returns to the columns of Parisianabout his controversial statements, last May, during the screening of his film at the Cannes Film Festival.

As part of the promotion of her feature film, presented on the Croisette in the category “A certain look”, Lola Quivoron had mentioned in interview accidents related to urban rodeo, these illegal races of two-wheeled vehicles or quads, to which cross bitumen is usually assimilated, pointing out the responsibility of the police.

“Accidents are often caused by police officers chasing and pushing cyclists to their deaths,” he told Konbini.

“Saved From Daily Insults”

Lola Quivoron explains that as a result of these comments, she received many accusatory messages, particularly from local elected officials, but also from police unions. “This phrase, taken out of context, generated a lot of misunderstanding and violence. Violence received by the policemen who felt targeted. Violence received by the relatives of the victims due to accidents on public roads. Violence that I myself received through salvos. of everyday insults,” she recalls.

The director assures that her statements have been truncated: “Journalists ask me about the crossed bitumen, deleting their questions. My phrase […] volunteered as a slogan, it has been completely chopped, chopped and recomposed”.

“My words have been caricatured, overinterpreted, extrapolated in articles and on television by journalists who had not seen my film,” he adds.

“A Fringe Practice”

In his interview on ParisianLola Quivoron calls for “the pacification of the debates” around urban rodeos and assures that police blunders are not the subject of her film, which paints the portrait of a gang of motorcyclists adept at “bicycle life.”

“My film quickly became associated with wild rodeos, a term that qualifies a marginal, dangerous practice that takes place on public roads, in the midst of cars and pedestrians. However, I do not stage any urban rodeo. In my movie, the bikers ride through the city, there’s no chase with the police never showing up,” he says.

If the theme “arouses reactions” and “generates a lot a priori” it is because that universe is still unknown, believes the director. “There is a refusal to admit the cultural part of cross country, which is brewing as a true alternative urban popular movement, like skateboarding and graffiti, other practices that were criminalized at the time,” he says.

During its presentation at the Cannes Film Festival, Rodeo was awarded the jury’s favorite prize in the category “A Certain Look”. It will be released in theaters on September 7.