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Documentary film | Anne Georget

The man who did not want to be king

By Anne Georget and Franck Eskenazi.
Director/sound : Anne Georget.
Image : Olivier Raffet.
Editing : Jean-François Giré.
Director of production : Sophie Boller.
Assistante of production : Laurence de Rosière.
Co-production : Interscoop and France 3.
First broadcasted : France 3, September 16, 1995 at 10:25pm.
Time : 53:05.
This is the story of a man who did not want to be king. Nicolas Petrovitch was brought up by his mother in Brittany in the socialist tradition of the “grand soir”. When 1968 came, he contributed to the revolution both on the barricades and from his architect’s table. Life passed by pleasantly in the company of his wife and two children DVD : L'homme qui ne voulut pas être roi, 53'00, Anne Georget (1995) until one day in 1989 a telephone call announced the arrival of History and a small, strange country, Montenegro (part of Yugoslavia) into the Petrovitchs’ small French apartment. His father had died a few months earlier. It was Nicolas, now heir to the Montenegro throne to whom the communist government came for authorisation to repatriate the remains of his great grandfather, King Nicolas I, who had died while in exile in France. It was a shock ! The story of his father, kept secret, bursts into Nicolas’ life : at 45, he discovers he is heir to a throne...
Between the small port of Bar and Cetinje, the historic capital of Montenegro, a third of the country’s inhabitants crowd the roadside, perch in trees... to welcome the home-coming of their king’s remains and to discover their Prince.
Nicolas discovers the Slav emotion when people with outstretched hands ask him “What are you doing in Paris ? You belong here, take what you want, everything is yours.”
Life can never be the same again. More so as war breaks out in Yugoslavia. A man of goodwill, Nicolas throws himself into the Montenegro arena to warn against the worst, inhumanity.
A modern tale, this film invites us to follow the journey, both personal and geostrategic, where the extraordinary destiny of a man is mingled with a country’s tragedy, that of Yugoslavia [1].


To illustrate, here is a presentation excerpt in French of the documentary film by Anne Georget “The man who did not want to be king” (1995) :

IMG/flv/anneGeorget1995.flv

FRENCH PRESS REVIEW :

Télérama
“This sane, perky film which is also serious and tragic — the horrors of the former Yugoslavia serve as a backdrop — tells us the journey of a character who could have been created by Jean Raspail and Hergé. (...) On the surface an entertaining film, but hedgehopping the explosive Balkans it makes you think...”

Libération
“Nicolas has verve and a sense of humour. Everything he needs to carry out his role in the centre of a story worthy of Voltaire.”

Le Figaro
“These days fairy tales must only exist in magazines which relate the lives of high society and crowned heads of state, and in scriptwriter’s imaginations. Nevertheless, reality regularly continues to surpass fiction. This is what this fascinating and unusual documentary reminds us.”

La Vie
“A prince without a palace, with no power but with a certain influence over his people, Nicolas tells his story this evening without wavering to a background of images from the archives, personal photos. An original look at this much-troubled region of the Balkans.”

Info Matin
“Fascinating.”

Télépoche
“The original portrait of a Prince architect, former ’soixante-huitard’ propelled in History.”

Point de Vue
“Many long talks, a character distressing of sincerity and a strange modern fairy tale : a documentary successfully done.”

[1] The film, in DVD format (NTSC 4:3, French), is available for sale for non-commercial broadcasting within the family from the Paris-based Agency Interscoop, 77 rue de Charonne, 75011 PARIS, FRANCE.
Tel. +33 (0)1 40 46 92 92 ; fax +33 (0)1 40 46 91 90 ; e-mail : interscoop(at)interscoop.com.

Copyright © Anne Georget 1995.
With our warm thanks to Mrs. Émilie Blanchet from the Agency Interscoop who, by allowing us to work on the digital file of Mrs. Anne Georget’s documentary film, gave us the opportunity to document this artcle with a video excerpt.
Video credit : © France 3/Interscoop 1995.

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