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2010 Festival Feature Films (March 25-28)

Belgian director Stijn Coninx presents Sœur Sourire

director Stijn Coninx screenplay Stijn Coninx, Ariane Fert, Chris Vander Stappen based on the life of Jeannine Deckers, Sœur Sourire starring Cécile De France, Sandrine Blancke, Jan Decleir, Johan Leysen, Chris Lomme, Jo Deseure, Marie Kremer, Filip Peeters, Christelle Cornil, Tsilla Chelton running time 2 h parental guidance

Synopsis

At the end of the 1950s, in the vicinity of Brussels.

Like all young people of the time, Jeannine Deckers thirsts for freedom and discovery. There is no way that she will accept the choices her parents have made for her: find a husband and take over the family bakery. She aspires to have another life, traveling and helping people. Initially attracted to art studies, she eventually decides to enter a convent. Jeannine discovers that being a Dominican nun is a difficult vocation. She is asked to renounce all worldly things, including music. She is just not ready to do that. Despite the incomprehension of the other sisters, but with the support of the mother superior, she holds firm and even composes a hit song, “Dominique.” Jeannine then becomes known by the whole world as “Sister Smile.”

She will become famous and her records will sell millions. Her success will be compared to that of Elvis Presley.

This film tells the unique and moving story of this young woman who never gave up on her dreams.

director/screenwriter
Stijn Coninx

selected filmography

actress
Cécile De France

selected filmography

accomplishments

actress
Sandrine Blancke

selected filmography

actor
Jan Decleir

selected filmography

Interview with Stijn Coninx (director)

How did you get the idea to create the film, Sœur Sourire (Sister Smile), alias of Jeannine Deckers?
About 15 years ago, two scriptwriters, Luc Maddelein and Leen van den Berg, suggested that I film a biography of Jeannine Deckers. However, I turned them down because the script focused essentially on her problems with the tax department and on a particular time of her life when she lived in poverty. That didn’t really interest me. Some years later, the producer Jan van Raemdonck brought up the same project. When I explained to him that I knew it and that I was not interested, he asked me to meet with the actress Cécile de France, who he thought would be perfect for the role of Soeur Sourire. Moreover, he agreed to let me modify the script.

And you accepted his proposition?
After I met Cécile, I was convinced. I began working with Chris Vander Stappen, then with Arian Fert on a new script. For me, a film that takes place in a different time period has no meaning if it doesn’t have any resonance with the present. So I wanted all the viewers — especially the younger generation — to recognize themselves in this story. I feel that the most interesting thing about Jeannine Deckers was her desire for love. Essentially, she is a young girl who desperately wants to be loved by her parents and yet never succeeded; she doesn’t know how to deal with or handle love. This is the main subject of the film.

Interview with Cécile de France (actress)

What is your take on the character of Sister Smile?
For me, she’s first and foremost a rebel, a dissident who rises above the limits of authority defined by her status. She also wanted to give a more humane image of the church. Through her songs, she sincerely believed that she could attract young people to the Catholic Church. But, she was also a woman who was concerned with the social reality of her time and with those who had less wealth: it is for this reason that she would have wanted the church to be at the service of humanity.

What aspect of her personality interests you the most?
That she was a pain! A real hardhead. She really was an egotistical individual with a disproportionate ego. She refused all authority, her mother’s, her superiors’ at the convent, and social rules.

Jeannine Deckers also has a dubious side …
Yes, she has a repressed aggressiveness and a savage brutality. During the shooting of the film, I proposed physically violent things that Stijn often accepted. Actually, I believe that she remained an unstable and curt adolescent who never became an adult and never could confront the realities of her life.

Were you coached to play the guitar and to sing?
For five months. But it’s the guitar that gave me the most difficulty: it’s truly thanks to Bruno Pillois that I learned to overcome my angst of playing in front of the camera.