Pascal Duquenne

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Pascal Duquenne with Daniel Auteuil in Cannes, 1996

Pascal Duquenne (born August 8, 1970 in Vilvoorde ) is a Belgian theater and film actor. The disabled athlete, who was born with Down's syndrome , became known to a wide audience through his repeated collaborations with film director Jaco Van Dormael . For Van Dormael's feature film On the Eighth Day (1996) he received the Acting Award at the Cannes International Film Festival .

Life

Training and collaboration with Van Dormael

After attending a normal kindergarten, Pascal Duquenne switched to a special school, where he was introduced to sport. He had his first success as a disabled athlete. He appeared at the Special Olympics at the age of eleven , which was followed by ten other long jump , running and swimming competitions. For his home country he won twelve medals, including a gold medal in swimming competitions. Parallel to sport, Duquenne began to be interested in music, dance and acting as a child. With the support of his teachers, he became a member of the well-known disabled theater group Créahm ( Créativité Handicapés mentaux trisomiques ) in 1985 and took part in theater tours. There he was discovered by the film director Jaco Van Dormael , who entrusted him with the first film role in 1991. In Van Dormael's award-winning drama Toto the Hero, Duquenne played the title character's brother, Célestin, who lives happily ever after despite his disability. His small role in the award-winning film earned him praise from critics. Film critic Günther Bastian counted the scenes with Duquenne among the "most intimate and touching" of the entire film.

Five years after filming Toto the hero , Van Dormael developed the script for the drama On the Eighth Day (1996) and wrote the lead role of Georges for Duquenne. The young man with Down syndrome is placed in a home for the mentally disabled after his mother dies. But nobody there is able to respond to his needs, feelings and ideas, and so he takes refuge in his world of thoughts. The naive and stubborn young man made the acquaintance of the egocentric advertising man Harry (played by Daniel Auteuil ) in a traffic accident at night . His professional success has led to a family crisis and separation from his wife and children. Despite initial problems, Harry soon finds comfort and closeness with Georges. Duquenne mastered the difficult, eighteen week long filming and dubbed himself, which he had not been able to do on his feature film debut. The film director's wife helped him learn the text. She spoke his text to him on tapes that he listened to over headphones for months.

Triumph in Cannes

On the eighth day it was in the favor of critics and the public and brought Duquenne, together with his co- actor Daniel Auteuil, the actor's prize at the Cannes International Film Festival in 1996 . It was the first time an actor with Down syndrome had won a grand prize at a film festival. At the same time, after four years, Duquenne finished his training at a music college in Brussels , where he was the only disabled student. After the triumph in Cannes, he and Auteuil were a welcome guest on French television programs such as 20 heures , and disability became the focus of the media. Duquenne also traveled the world to present Van Dormael's film. In the same year he was awarded the most important film prize in Belgium, the Joseph Plateau Prize . In Germany, the Süddeutsche Zeitung highlighted Duquenne's acting performance: “Duquenne himself suffers from Down's syndrome, but Van Dormael has not made him the subject of cinéma verité speculation, but lets him act like any other professional actor, precisely, controlled and with the visible joy of doing his craft. ”The New York Times spoke of a“ rudimentary achievement ”, the advantage of which lies in its spontaneity and authenticity. Negative voices, on the other hand, described the director's production as too kitsch and drew parallels to the autistic drama Rain Man .

After the success of his first leading role, Duquenne's parents, with whom he lived in Vilvoorde, initially turned down all subsequent role offers. The parents also turned down projects from Hollywood because their son did not speak English and would have been on his own for several months. In 2002 he moved into his own apartment in the center of Brussels. Three houses were built there, in which 19 young people with Down syndrome live and are cared for independently. The project was supported by the trisomy 21 parents' initiative Le huitième jour , named after Duquenne's successful film and directed by director Jaco Van Dormael. In 2004 Duquenne was awarded the Belgian Order of the Crown for his services as an actor and disabled athlete and was raised to the rank of commander . In the same year Duquenne made a guest appearance in the French television series Commissaire Moulin (2004); Two years later followed a supporting role in the Belgian thriller The Room (2006). His life has hardly changed today. He regularly engages in sporting activities and takes part in swimming competitions for the disabled. He has also remained loyal to the work with the Créahm theater group, but devotes himself to other art movements as far as possible. Today Duquenne is enthusiastic about engraving technology and painting. His pictures have been publicly exhibited in Brussels.

At the beginning of January 2009, Duquenne was won as the face of the French advertising campaign for the mobile operator simyo . The advertising slogan Cet Homme Est Différent (German: “This person is different”) and his appearance in TV spots led to a public discussion as to whether the 38-year-old's disability should be used for commercial purposes. The advertising campaign, however, found support from French disability organizations such as UNAPEI. In the same year Jaco Van Dormael used him again as an actor in his feature film Mr. Nobody (2009), which received an invitation to the competition at the 66th Venice Film Festival . In 2015 Duquenne starred in Van Dormael's feature film The Brand New Testament , the Belgian entry for the 2016 Academy Awards in the category of Best Foreign Language Film .

Filmography

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e cf. Royer, Philippe: CANNES 96. Portrait: Pascal, l'artiste . In: La Croix, May 22, 1996, p. 11
  2. ↑ cf. Nackaerts, Nancy: Actor proves handicaps surmountable . In: Yomiuri Shimbun , June 15, 1997, News
  3. ↑ a b c d Schmitt-glasses, Angela: Our friend Pascal . In: Focus , December 2, 1996, No. 49, pp. 130-131
  4. ↑ cf. Bastian, Günther: Toto the hero . In: film-dienst 22/1991
  5. ↑ cf. Malcolm, Derek: Cannes Triumph for Mike Leigh . In: The Guardian, May 21, 1996, p. 2
  6. ↑ cf. Schenidermann, Daniel: Le comédien, le trisomique et le mongolien . In: Le Monde , May 27, 1996
  7. ↑ cf. Pflaum, HG: To err is human . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , December 5, 1996, No. 281, p. 15
  8. ↑ cf. Maslin, Janet: Embracing the Miracles In the Living of Life . In: The New York Times , March 7, 1997, Section C, p. 23
  9. ↑ cf. Drowned in the rain - "The eighth day" in the cinema . In: the daily newspaper , December 5, 1996, p. 16
  10. ↑ cf. Koll, Horst Peter: On the eighth day . In: film-dienst 25/1996
  11. ↑ cf. Belgium ennobles Baroness Annie Cordy . Associated Press Worldstream, July 6, 2004
  12. ↑ cf. Bouvet, Bruno: Pascal Duquenne a remporté la palme de l'autonomie . In: La Croix, May 18, 2007, no.37751
  13. ↑ cf. Mallevoüe, Delphine de: Ces handicapés qui deviennent des vedettes de la pub . In: Le Figaro , January 29, 2009, No. 20062, p. 8
personal data
SURNAME Duquenne, Pascal
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian theater and film actor
DATE OF BIRTH August 8, 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH Vilvoorde