It was in the summer of 2023, in the region of Valinco, in Southern Corsica. Around Propriano, the village squares were covered with yellow and black posters: “cinematic casting”. “For the feature film kingdom, the text said: directed by Julien Colonna and produced by Chi-Fou-Mi Productions, we are looking for women and men between 16 and 80 (for beach, pool, bar performance, etc.). »
For the pool scene, filming took place in September at the Propriano campsite, among oleanders and inflatable alligators. A forty-year-old man in a cap and tank top guides the extras waiting in the water: “After my best, you act crazy on the mats. » The black shadow of the mountains looms in the distance. A few minutes’ drive away, the Miramar, the legendary hotel of the father of the man who shouts ” Cut! » into his megaphone.
Julien Colonna, Jean-Jérôme Colonna, known as “Jean-Jé”. The son, the father. Even though the surname is one of the most widespread on the island, everyone in Corsica made the connection between the young director and his father, who died on All Saints’ Day in 2006. in a car accident. The Drug Enforcement Administration, a powerful American anti-drug agency, saw Jean-Jé as one of the pillars of the “French connection” before he became the undisputed leader of a criminal clan that ruled the south for thirty years from Corsica. Eight years before his death, a parliamentary inquiry report made this little man bald with a passing glance and sunglasses “the only Corsican godfather” Again “active and influential”.
“Universal Subsidiary Relationship »
How, when you love cinema, can you miss such a crazy story, that of a father who ran away twice – the first of which lasted ten years -, that of a son who only meets his father at Christmas or on holiday in Corsica, sometimes for a hunting or fishing trip, mostly with his father’s henchmen and bodyguards? In Unitedis a little girl, Lesia, who plays the role of the godfather’s daughter, played by the excellent Ghjuvanna Benedetti, student nurse and living volunteer firefighter, and spokesperson for the student collective demanding the truth about the assassination of Yvan Colonna in 2022. and the daughter of an independent leader . When the character complains about not being told anything, she is heard replying: “What is said here and what you see, you do not tell anyone. Not tomorrow, not ten years from now. »
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