The writer Édouard Louis has been accompanying the students of the L class since they entered La Manufacture. For their graduation show, the actress and director Laetitia Dosch has revisited the French author's novels to explore with the students what the transition from one social environment to another reveals about oneself and about society.

Note of intent by Laetitia Dosch:

The invitation came at a time when I wanted to devote myself to my acting career: to direct the students of La Manufacture in a text by Édouard Louis. I said yes almost immediately. There were these students nearing their graduation – a moment that I experienced and that I know is crucial – and Édouard's very powerful books, which had been with me for several years.

I have always been fascinated by writers, by the process of writing more exactly, especially when it is autobiographical. I imagine the story developing in the author's head, in secret, while he is talking to others, living, going through situations that he will then tell. This distance from what he experiences allows him to free himself, to access other interlocutors, perhaps another world.

But can we really free ourselves from where we come from?

Since En finir avec Eddy Bellegueule, Édouard Louis has revisited his story again and again, but his point of view has evolved. Like a tightrope walker between two worlds – we perhaps regret having to call them that – he never stops, stubbornly seeking out the right relationship.

En Finir ! will move through Eddy Bellegueule, but surely also through his following books, shedding a different light on the situations described. En Finir ! is also about the L class, who are nearing the end of their training, about that moment of passage when, with fear in our stomachs and desire as a rudder, we leave what has shaped us, willingly or not, for an unknown elsewhere.

Perhaps, like Édouard – or like me now – they will need to revisit this turning point, from which, personally, I continue to draw strength in times of doubt.