Stage One: First Testimonies and Writing

For one month, the five witnesses, Jean-Christophe Husson, meet in the writing room. All work sessions are filmed. The tone is set from the first questions:

• What should we tell: a comedy, a drama, a tragedy?
• Who are the five characters, what are their ages, their lives, and what will they experience?

As the dialogue opens up to memories, digressions, and varying opinions, more specific questions will be asked, challenging the witnesses:

• When you go to the Noailles market, what happens?
• If character A. is a sex worker, how do they manage their clients?
• How do you speak to a client? Go ahead, can you improvise some dialogues?
• In these living conditions, did you have the strength to call your mother, to reconnect with your family?

Alongside these writing sessions, Jean-Christophe Husson and Johanna B. will write the structure of the fiction and propose it to the witnesses for feedback on the accuracy of specific situations. Do they question the choices or prejudices of the screenwriters? Key scenes are discussed, reactions are collected, and adjustments are made.

Stage Two: Filming of Key Scenes
Production begins. Some key scenes from the series are filmed. These scenes are selected for their narrative strength and their role in the overall arc of the fiction. The production level must meet the standard of contemporary quality television. We also film sequences that set the narrative framework—showing the key locations of the fiction and giving faces to the characters.

Stage Three: Back to the Writing Table
Another month of work. The script must be completed, and the final act must be written.
The witnesses will watch the previously filmed scenes and comment on their accuracy. Are there any suggestions for changes? “Not violent enough? It’s missing humor, even with clients, sometimes we laugh, etc.” They may request that certain scenes be redone.

Finally, the last act and the epilogue of the series are approached. The evolution of the characters is discussed, not to reflect the present of the witnesses, but perhaps to explore their future aspirations. How will the story end? What are the key sequences in the last episode that need to be filmed in their entirety? Are they tragic or happy?

Stage Four: Filming the Final Sequences
Production continues. The key scenes of the fifth episode and the two last acts of the final episode are filmed.

The Form:
The six episodes are presented to the audience. In an elegant writing room, five young people—gay, trans, bi, queer—gather around a large oval table. They are welcomed by Jean-Christophe Husson and Johanna B. Each person introduces themselves, and the work begins.

From the very first questions, the tone is set:

• What should we tell? And why?
• A comedy, a drama, a tragedy?
• Who are the five characters, what are their ages, lives, and what will they experience?

On a whiteboard, photographs and key words are displayed, and gradually, narrative elements are set down. Lines of the story are drawn. The dialogue opens up to intimate memories, digressions, and opinions.

As the ideas take shape, scenes are improvised, and dialogues are written. The filmed version (the fiction) is presented to the audience. Fiction gradually intertwines with the documentary. Some scenes are critical, and they may need to be re-shot or have the ending altered.

The amount of fictional scenes increases as the episodes progress, and by the final episode, fiction takes the lead in concluding the documentary. The overall narrative goal is to provide enough context for the audience to be engaged in the fiction’s storyline while allowing enough space for the witnesses’ voices to remain the central source of the narrative. The audience must empathize with the emotional weight of the characters' lives.

The documentary will not shy away from topics such as prostitution, HIV, internalized homophobia, violence, and social exclusion. Yet, within these struggles, humor, love, and hope remain central to the narrative.

At the end of the six episodes, viewers will understand the experience of being a young LGBTQ+ individual from the Muslim community in Marseille and the profound issues they face.