Non Conforme: director Vincent Dumesnil visits CinéCréatis to present his documentary

Vincent Dumesnil or directing as a revelation

Vincent Dumesnil may be working in his dream job today, but his career path has not been a linear one. After gaining a postgraduate diploma (DESS) in computer science, he worked as an IT engineer for various companies. As time went by, his interest dried up and he eventually lost his job. He decided to take a break, and set off on a trip to the other side of the world, a “one-year interlude that turned out to be a revelation”, he tells us. It was during this time that he developed a passion for video, photography and image in a more general sense, which he already aspired to practise professionally.

After training as an image reporter, Vincent Dumesnil quickly set about making his first documentary film, Nizwa dans le sillage de Henry de Monfreid ( 2013 ) , which was a great success and was broadcast on major television channels (Thalassa, TV5 Monde, France 3 Corse, Chaîne Méditerranée).“Through this documentary, I explored the lands travelled by the travel writer Henry de Monfreid at the beginning of the 20th century,” he explains, “ juxtaposing his personal letters with my own adventures on an Omani dhow, Nizwa.”

After this initial success, he multiplied his projects and explored a wide range of subjects. In 2014, with Classe d’accueil, he brought to the screen the day-to-day reality of non-French-speaking secondary school students, both inside and outside the school system. Then in 2015, he won a call for tenders to direct two 52-minute documentaries, giving rise to the series L’autre est mon avenir, in which the director chronicles the European literary and educational project of the same name carried out by secondary school teachers from November 2015 to June 2017. He then directed Taf et Maffé, which highlights the African canteen in a migrant workers’ hostel, followed by Île de Pâque : Les Rapanui en résistance and Île de Pâques, la quête des origines, two 52-minute documentaries in which the artist tackles the ecological, identity and cultural issues facing this small isolated island in the Pacific, illustrating the challenges faced by local populations.

Non Conforme, a more personal project

On 29 April, Vincent Dumesnil presented his latest project, the documentary Non Conforme, to the 1st year students at CinéCréatis Montpellier. In this 52-minute film, which in his own words marked “a more personal turning point“, we meet Hortense, Maolan and Christopher, three people with dyslexia. The director, who suffers from the disorder himself, deals with a complex subject that rarely gives dyslexics a voice and is too often viewed solely through a medical prism. In Non Conforme, made for France 3, Vincent Dumesnil chose to work with an extremely limited technical set-up, using only live footage and a production approach that was fairly close to that of an interview. It’s a long-term process, which was evident at every stage of the production. “It takes time to get into the intimacy of a family, and for trust to be established“, explains the director, who also had to process a large number of rushes.

Despite the daily challenges faced by people with dyslexia, Vincent Dumesnil takes a positive and original view of the situation, emphasising the adaptability and creative skills that people with dyslexia develop in the face of difficulties. An idea he sums up perfectly: “dyslexia is an ambivalent reality, where ‘dys’ people struggle against a world set in its rules, but it is also a potential, when they find the right path to fulfil themselves and blossom, in accordance with their talents.”

An afternoon of sharing and learning

The afternoon spent at CinéCréatis gave the first-year students the opportunity to discover Vincent Dumesnil’s rather atypical career path, and to broaden the possibilities open to them when they graduate. Discovering the documentary Non Conforme was also an opportunity to raise their awareness of the subject, and of the work that can be made from a personal subject. It was a richly informative meeting, which ended with a question-and-answer session in which the Montpellier-based director took great pleasure in taking part, offering some enlightened advice to our students.

A big thank you to Vincent Dumesnil, and to all the students and teachers who took part.