Ma maman est en Amérique, elle a rencontré Buffalo Bill

Everything goes wrong for Jean on his first day of school: he starts by getting lost in the schoolhouse corridors, only to be escorted by the headmaster himself to the classroom, where a strict teacher and sneering classmates await him. Out on the playground everyone is absorbed in their game of marbles, and no one lets Jean play with them. Undaunted, the young boy promises to bring them metal marbles, engendering more acceptance from his classmates. It is downright simple to find his way into his father’s factory, where the sought-after marbles are enclosed in ball bearings. When the police appear in school the next day, Jean and the other children collaborate to hide the evidence. Another level of the story depicts the ambivalent friendship between Jean and the older girl from an underprivileged family next door. As she reads postcards from America to Jean, the two fabricate the adventures Jean’s mother must be having with Buffalo Bill. It is also the same girl next door, however, who grimly robs Jean of his belief in Santa Claus. In “Maman est en Amérique, elle a rencontré Buffalo Bill”, the directors Marc Boréal and Thibaut Chatel pointedly portray how thoughtless children can be with one another in matters of exclusion or belonging. For instance, the first day of school, that important moment in a child’s development, in which the magical world gradually gives way to the alleged reality of adults. (as) Stimmen: Marc Lavoine, Julie Depardieu, Tom Trouffier, Alice Orsat