When New York was called Angoulême: a story "bewildering"

For decades, Marie-France Brière ruled over the French audiovisual landscape (PAF). As head of the variety programs of the big chains, she launched programs (Fort Boyard, The Minikeums, the Collaro Show …) and talents of the small screen (Patrick Sabatier, Thierry Ardisson, Patrick Sebastien, The Inconnu …) who crossed the weather.

Today, she sets her sights on another unknown: the archivist of the city of Angoulême Florent Gaillard. The historian serves as a guide to his surprising documentary "What if New York was called Angoulême", which traces the forgotten history of the discovery of the New York Bay by the explorer Jean de Verrazane sent by Francis I in the 1520s to identify access to China. Arriving off the current New York aboard "La Dauphine", the sailor christened these lands "Angoulesme" in honor of the sovereign, Earl of Angouleme. We are in 1524, well before the arrival of the Dutch and British settlers. Since Verrazane did not plant a flag or set up a colony on the spot, the name did not remain, remaining only on maps of the time and in other rare documents.

The documentary will be shown for the first time in the United States on November 12 as part of the new festival French Cinema Week, the New York version of the Francophone Film Festival of Angoulême, co-founded in 2008 by Marie-France Brière and Dominique Besnehard. The first edition of this new rendezvous, edited by film lovers Laurence Teinturier and Marie-José Hunter, will last until November 14 in the presence of Charlotte Gainsbourg and Yvan Attal in particular.

"And if New York was called Angoulême" follows Florent Gaillard in his "investigation" between the city of Charente and New York, in the footsteps of what remains of Angouleme in the Big Apple. "I am very proud to share this beautiful storysays Marie-France Brière, who will present the documentary with Florent Gaillard. New York and Angouleme, 40,000 inhabitants, are not expected to be on the same level".

Marie-France Brière heard about this story "dumbfounding"At the Parisian library Saint-Genevieve when she discovered the 1950 thesis of the historian Jacques Habert, former senator of the French from abroad, on the Angolan past of New York. Four years ago she began research. "There was not much in Angouleme. Which surprised me because the city has not changed. I told myself that it would be easy to get back to the time of Francis I, but no …". During her investigation, however, she crosses the path of Florent Gaillard, who will become the main character of the documentary. She had thought of taking a figure known to be "the investigator", in this case the actor François-Xavier Demaison. But her friend Thierry Ardisson convinced her to choose a historian. "He reminded me that I used to take strangers and show them"She recalls.

On the New York side, the research is more prolix. They take him to the French Lyceum in New York, where Jacques Habert taught, to the Consulate of France, to Columbia, the New York Historical Society, where are old maps of the region, and especially the Morgan Library where there is a copy of the report of his expedition Verrazane made to Francis I. In this little treasure, which the king is a prisoner will not read, we find all regions of "New France" named by the browser along the northeast coast of the future United States. "It took us three months of discussions to film five pages of the manuscript"Recalls Marie-France Brière.

This dive in history has given other desires to the 78-year-old producer, who is working on a documentary on the relationship between Napoleon and the islands. "I'm always thinking about what I'm going to do, not what I did".