Short film: Anaïs Petit transforms imitation into fiction

In an interview conducted by Chloé Borivage, Anaïs Petit presents "Prête-moi ta voix", a short film selected in several festivals and which shows how the short format can, like the duanju, condense a story into a few minutes.

French actress and impressionist Anaïs Petit rose to fame through her humorous segments broadcast on Europe 1, one of the country's leading radio stations. Trained in theater, she has spent several years developing a wide repertoire of impressions of French personalities, which she has performed in her shows and on television programs, notably Vivement Dimanche, a popular public television show. This experience, blending stage work, humor, and vocal training, forms the artistic basis of "Prête-moi ta voix" (Lend Me Your Voice).

The short film follows Alice, a struggling impressionist who starts calling theaters, shops, and agencies, impersonating celebrities. Anaïs Petit explains that the desire to subvert her own profession stemmed from her interest in a relatively unexplored narrative device. She confides, "The idea of integrating impersonations into a story felt like it had never really been done before." This mechanism gives the narrative its momentum, based on vocal deception and the immediate situations it creates.

Born from an idea by James No, her co-writer on stage, the project first existed as a play before being adapted into a short film. Anaïs wrote, performed, produced, and prepared a complete storyboard before handing the directing over to No so she could fully dedicate herself to her role. She sums it up: "Playing the lead role, producing the film, writing it… it was a lot." The short also features several actors close to her artistic world, including Sylvain Binetti, Eric Delcourt, Christophe Truchi, and Jeanfi Janssens.

The short format imposes a compact rhythm, refocusing on the relationship between Alice and her accomplice Jérémy, while also revealing a gallery of characters through impersonations. Anaïs Petit also discusses her current projects: the stage, the development of a one-woman show, and her participation in the animated film Marcel et Monsieur Pagnol, presented at Cannes.

An interview conducted by Chloé Borivage

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