A Mediterranean and mountainous island, with a population thirty times less dense than in Île de France, Corsica could not avoid a very localist cinema. Insularity, traditions and the return to one's roots are the preferred themes that filmmakers deal with.

Paradoxically, many movies supposed to take place partially in Corsica were filmed elsewhere for logistical reasons. Conversely, it is known that for The Longest Day, the Normandy landings were shot in Corsica. All touristic guides and websites explain that it is because of the undenatured aspect of Saleccia beach. But it is mainly because the British Admiralty had promised to recreate the invasion task force but did not mention the fuel bill. Darryl Zanuck therefore turned to the U.S. 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean which had amphibious maneuvers scheduled at Corsica in June of 1961. This takes nothing away from the beauty of the beach of Saleccia, one of the most loveliest in Europe.

The Corsican File, shot in 2003 by Alain Berberian, is adapted from a comic. Comic book author, René Pétillon, said that the main character of the movie is Corsica itself. The book, translated into Corsican language, was well received on the island. Filming a comedy in Corsica based on a rather parodic view of the domestic quarrels within the island needed diplomacy. The script was sent to local officials. It’s even said it would have been submitted for approval to a figure of the separatists! Avoiding an overwhelming occupation in a conquered territory, the production hired its assistants, as well as dozens of actors and technicians from the island, and of course all the extras, on the spot. The team integrated into the local life by moving to hotels and filming throughout the island.

Aside from a few scenes in Paris, where the story begins, The Corsican File has the peculiarity of having been shot entirely on the island during eleven weeks in about fifteen municipalities. Alain Berberian said he had a crush on Corsica while having the desire to avoid giving a postcard. But he organized a full tour of the island from Erbalunga to Porto Vecchio through the Île Rousse or Figari. Pictures of landscapes and villages do justice to the nickname of Corsica, Island of Beauty.

Hikers, another comedy shot in Corsica, has nothing of a Corsican story. Moreover, the Belgian accent of Benoît Poelvoorde as a local hiking guide is rather odd. But the landscape around the GR 20 (a hiking trail from north to south Corsica) is right there, as well as the Corsican mountains and the sea. This 1997 film shot by Philippe Harel relates a Parisian buddy group’s sports holidays struggling with relationship problems and the hiking difficulties. “ How could we get lost when there’s only one road? ”– this  line by Mathieu (Vincent Elbaz) won’t be forgotten!

In 2012, we discover, with Miles from Anywhere, the debut feature by the Belgian Pierre Duculot, the wildness of Corsica through a small depopulated mountain village. The heroine inherits a house in High Corsica. In search of her origins, she discovers another life, away from the cities. The village is Olmi Capella in Giunssani, at an altitude of 3,000 feet. The director, a teacher and film critic, defines it as “a passage from darkness to light, from the black country of Charleroi to the sun of Corsica.” The Corsican mountain is magnified, first in the mist and the pale light of spring, as still inhabited by the long mountain winter, with the Monte Padru still snowy, then under the shining summer sun, in the maquis of the Tartagine valley. To have the Genoese bridge admired, the team had to carry his equipment by mules! However this movie is not a Corsican postcard: “I wanted a movie where you can not see the sea, which is not speaking of vendetta and terrorism ” Pierre Duculot summed.

On the contrary, the culture of violence and secrecy are the subject of three directors with a Corsican origin. First, in 2004, with Rules of Silence, by Orso Miret, filmed at Asco, in High Corsica, and with Elena’s Gift, by Frédéric Graziani, shot in Bastia. Both films do justice to the beauty of the landscapes and villages, in the daylight or by night, in summer and in winter. A return to homeland, the past, the family, and the law of silence, are discussed without caricature. With Apaches, a film noir shot in Porto-Vecchio, in southern Corsica, in autumn of 2012, Thierry de Peretti, born in Corsica, chooses to shoot from his island only suburban areas ugliness. He shows the damages of social and racial violence as well as those of cultural and mafia violence. He does that realistically and without Manichaeism.

If we list movies shot in Corsica, we cannot leave out Adieu Philippine, shot in 1960 by Jacques Rozier, an emblematic New Wave fictitious documentary on the youth of the sixties. A young Parisian spends some time in Corsica, but it is only a break. He will soon go to war in Algeria. There are the mountains, coves, beaches, car journeys on winding roads, the port of Calvi, but none of it is picturesque. There is only a harmony between the people and the scenery. “Never have  landscapes been so moving in a film that in Adieu Philippine. Rozier dealt with them neither as scenic elements nor as characters [...] In this movie we see a landscape and we think about people who live there. Conversely, when we see human beings, girls, boys, we think about the world around them. By saying that, I think I have done nothing but define cinema (ancient or modern, I don’t know), in any case, cinema.” -Jean Luc Godard at Cannes in 1962.

To be continued … Episode 4 : The region of Brittany