Twenty years since he had set foot in Lycée Michelet. It was in 2001 or 2002, he doesn’t remember very well. “The last time I went to school,” laughs Toufik Ayadi. This young 41-year-old producer can’t believe he finds himself there, in the teachers’ room, surrounded and pampered. He does not have, within these walls, only very good memories but did not hesitate when the Académie des Césars asked him to meet the students.
“I would have loved at the time for someone to come and show us other worlds and open doors for us,” he explains. “It’s a way of showing students from all walks of life that the cinema professions, often idealized or fantasized, are not so far from them”, confirms Kenza Manach, head of the education department of the Académie des Césars.
A “Caesar at school” was imagined in 2020 but could not really start until last year due to the Covid. Seven winners took part in the game in 2022, around fifteen are planned for this year.
Toufik Ayadi, who created his company Srab films in 2015, already has four Césars to his credit, including that of the best first film won last year for Les Magnétiques by Vincent Maël Cardona. He also produced Les Miserables by Ladj Ly and Saint-Omer by Alice Diop. However, his path has not been a long calm river.
It is this life experience, where fate and chance played their part, that he came to share with the students of a second option plastic arts class. “At your age, I didn’t know what I was going to do, I didn’t even ask myself the question,” he admits. Good school results make him integrate this prestigious high school of Vanves in scientific section. The year of his first, a terrible scooter accident on the way to school interrupts his schooling. Five months and a few operations later, he returns to high school, repeats his year, and will never be able to make up for lost time. At 19, without a diploma, he was hired as a trainee in the management of an advertising film. “I did the courier and I served the coffees,” he says. I didn’t go to make movies. I became a manager for a production company, that’s how I discovered this profession. “A sad story, he concedes, and an atypical journey. “That’s what’s beautiful,” he continues. One day, you too will have a click and you will have to trust yourself. Me, I trusted myself. »
The questions do not take long to fuse. What is the profession of producer? How much does a movie cost? Where will he get the money? How does he choose the stories? How long does a shoot take? Toufik Ayadi answers with simplicity and demystifies the image of the producer. “Finding money and supporting a director to make the best possible film is not always easy and it can take years. During this time, we gain nothing. »
He underlines the advantages of a French financing system without which he would never have been able to produce Les Magnétiques or Les Miserables, which took him to the Cannes Film Festival and then to Los Angeles for the Oscars. “Without this system, we would only have Marvels. Do you want to grow up only with Marvel? The students present are for the most part not yet fixed on their future. “It’s interesting to understand everything that happens behind a camera, it opens up horizons,” explains one of them. They are a handful to consider working in the cinema, like Nathan who dreams of being a director. Toufik Ayadi spends time with them and encourages them. “If you really want to, give yourself the means. Go to film school and above all watch films and ask yourself why they speak to you. The most important thing in this job is the desire to create. »
He then takes his Caesar out of a simple white plastic bag. Success assured. The trophy, which impresses the students with its weight, is passed from hand to hand for a few selfies before the final group photo. The students and their teachers are delighted. Toufik Ayadi too, visibly touched by this unexpected reunion with his past.
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