Cédric Ido, 42 years old, has always loved observing the life of his hometown in Seine-Saint-Denis and how it has shaped his relationship with the world. He knew from the beginning that he would turn it into a work of art. He just had to find the right window. « I wondered how to approach the suburbs differently than what had already been done, by being as least frontal as possible. But how to find the right metaphor? » he said.
In his line of sight: the new generation struggling with nihilism, who do not recognize themselves in their parents or older siblings. « I am struck by the talents, the inventiveness of these young people who, however, are not aware of it because they have never received any feedback, » regrets Cédric Ido. « It’s this glass ceiling above their heads that led me to the idea of gravity. The planets refocus us all. On the scale of the galaxy, our narcissism, our quarrels become insignificant.”
The confrontation between two generations, which is portrayed in his second feature film, is thus aligned with the movement of planets, with the suburbs suddenly appearing as an open-air laboratory. A futuristic field where young residents dress, move, and act according to new codes, borrowed from manga, Japanese culture and its rites. References that can lead to unprecedented types of radical actions such as human sacrifice of a volunteer from a clan or a member of a rival gang in « La Gravité. »
Double Culture
« My aim was to show how a pseudo-fundamentalism could arise outside of religion. I also wanted to give the new generation a more sophisticated image than that of the older one, through their clothing, in particular. And the colors they wear, blue-white-red. They represent both the French flag and refer to the Japanese symbolism: blue for wisdom, red to ward off demons… This aesthetic says both: « Whatever happens, we are French, but we behave differently. » It’s up to us, the director suggests, to see this as a richness.
Born of a double culture, Cédric Ido knows what he is talking about. He grew up in Stains (Seine-Saint-Denis), with an interruption between the ages of 3 and 8. During this period (1983-1988), his mother, unable to find work in France, decided to return to Burkina Faso with her two sons, Cédric and Jacky (now an actor, director and screenwriter, like his brother). Led by President Thomas Sankara, the country was experiencing its first revolution. Cédric Ido had his first contact with the stage, appearing as a simple silhouette in a play performed at the Maison du Peuple in Ouagadougou. The little boy, already steeped in films that he watched with his cinephile parents, felt immediately at ease.
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