• TF1 broadcasts this Monday the miniseries Les Randonneuses, created by Fanny Riedberger (Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec), which follows six women with cancer or in remission who take up the challenge of hiking to attack the Dome of Lauze, at nearly 4,000 meters above sea level.
  • A series worn by Alix Poisson, Clémentine Célarié, best actress award at Series Mania, Joséphine de Meaux, Claire Borotra and Tiphaine Daviot.
  • Meet Camille Chamoux, who plays the petulant Patty.

A jubilant and touching climb! Les randonneuses, drama in six episodes signed Fanny Riedberger (Lycée Toulouse-Lautrec) and broadcast this Monday at 21:10 on TF1, follows six women, suffering from cancer or in remission, who decide to attack the Dome of Lauze, a summit of nearly 4,000 meters, in memory of Eve (Elsa Lunghini), a chemo friend who died. Served by a cast that commands respect (Alix Poisson, Clémentine Célarié, Best Actress Award at Series Mania, Joséphine de Meaux, Claire Borotra, Tiphaine Daviot) and the sumptuous landscapes of the Hautes-Alpes, this miniseries delivers a funny and tender portrait of six women without ever falling pathos despite its serious and still taboo subject. At Series Mania, Camille Chamoux, who plays the petulant Patty, evokes this choral series full of humor, depth and intelligence.

What did you like about this project?

I liked the richness of the female characters on offer. This is the first time that we present heroines, suffering from cancer or in remission, positive, funny and sexy ... And this despite having to stick to the disease. The role of art is to give people positive representations, it profoundly moves society and lines. The dramaturgy is very strong and linked to how each character has gone through his ordeals. The director Frédéric Berthe presented us a montage à la Lost, by flashback... Everything is extremely well written.

With Patty, we are far from the image we have of a woman with cancer!

Yes, she is exuberant, outgoing and walks around in minishorts! I found it extremely invigorating and cool to have a character discover his sexiness with cancer. It takes all the clichés backwards!

When we discover her in her colorful outfits, we are also far from imagining her emergency doctor ...

We tried to make Patty look extremely cheerful. She is sexy, wears color and takes care of herself. Those things that we tend to think of as forgotten in a woman with cancer, she put them in the foreground. Her femininity, her homosexuality, all the things she had kept hidden came out during her cancer. According to what women testify, the principle of cancer is to make invisible. It was very important to have a character among his wives who was extremely visible. What Patty's look says is, "Well, look at me now."

His look destabilizes others...

She uses it to provoke, destabilize and be watched... Too often, we look away from sick people. She wants to be the center of attention.

We are also far from the clichés of the representation of lesbians on screen...

It emerges from her a very great femininity in this lesbian woman. I find that strong. This moves the lines of representation. Despite the diversity of possible incarnation of a homosexual female character, the image of short hair and relative masculinity is still very much anchored. Showing a woman who loves women, and for all that, expresses in an absolutely exciting, warm and natural way all the assets of femininity, again, it takes the image of Epinal back!

Did you undergo any training for the medical procedures that your character prodigalizes or was there a consultant on set?

My stunt double for the stunt scenes was an emergency doctor. She taught me how to behave and how to intervene. I listened to her advice and tried to replicate everything she told me.

How was the chemistry, blatant on screen, built between the six actresses?

It was instantaneous and eminently strong. There was a snowstorm on the first day of filming and it was absolutely necessary that we shoot the scene in the highest location of the plot. We met and played in a snowstorm while walking for miles, followed by a technical team that struggled and that we tried to support as best we could by screaming under the snow, in the most piercing cold and without chairs! The image of Épinal, once again of the actress who drinks her frappuccino in an armchair while a fan is brought to her, was damaged! This wonderful troupe of actresses shared something: we were behind the subject and not in front. Our complicity owes much to the unifying, rich and limitless personality of Clémentine Célarié. She has always put her profession before the most important concerns in society: she kissed an HIV-positive man in the eyes of all when she touched her most, she dared to talk about her cancer. The meeting with Clementine profoundly changed my life and she set the tone for this group of women.

Is it more complicated to play in the high mountains than in the city?

Nature imposed itself in a very strong way: we hiked a lot, we were at altitude, we spent an hour and a half every morning with six in an egg dating from René Coty (laughs), there was no comfort, nevertheless we had very strong scenes to play. Nature was a partner in play, we had to consider it as such. Again, this shoot put things less important in the background. It takes great adaptability in our business to make a series like that.

What would you like this series to spark as conversations?

I wish this changed my view of women with cancer. I tend to think that humor is, pardon the expression, the Vaseline of life. The most tragic, darkest things that we have to go through in a woman's or a man's life, the only way to overcome them without wanting to commit suicide or kill someone, is to laugh collectively. There are currently very profound social upheavals happening in France, and I believe that we must not forget the unifying power of humour, of the collective experience of laughter. For me, laughter is very political. I think laughter and humor are vectors of change, that's what I experience in my show.

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