His hard-hitting documentary tackles a controversial but increasingly alarming subject: young men’s obsession with getting the perfect body…
By Martin Grenier
Few documentaries have fuelled conversations this past year quite like Adonis, a Télé-Québec documentary about young men’s obsession with getting the perfect body. For that, we can thank Jérémie Battaglia, a 41-year-old filmmaker from the South of France who has called Quebec home since 2009. Battaglia, co-founder of the Extérieur Jour production studio, has long been interested in the body’s relationship with performance, feelings of inadequacy and peer pressure, and in Adonis he investigates this issue.
The premise for Adonis is based on Battaglia’s own experience. Bullied at school, he resorted to the weight room to become more imposing. While the director generally avoids putting himself in his films, his story was a great way to gain the trust of his subjects and alleviate any concerns they might have had of being judged.
“It’s the first time I’ve ever heard young men that age speak out like this,” Battaglia says. “What I realized in talking about men is that we tend to first and foremost talk about problems caused by men. These young men feel that the only time we actually talk about them is when they’re making trouble or being violent. The documentary allowed them to open up about who they are and how they feel in their own words. I think that’s another reason it’s had such a big impact.”
Battaglia finds it disturbing that few male artists are interested in the well-being of young men, especially considering social media’s wildly disproportionate influence – a danger the documentary highlights as a major concern. He’s particularly taken aback by the gap between the real lives of the young men Adonis follows and the image they project online.
Fortunately, Battaglia had an ace up his sleeve when it came to helping the men in his film see the difference between the two: time. Thanks to support from Télé-Québec and other organizations, including the Canada Media Fund, he was able to devote 20 shooting days to the project, a rare opportunity for any documentary.
“It makes a huge difference, especially on TV projects,” he says. “It gives you the leeway to develop a strong auteur approach, with a compelling directing perspective to present the subject in a way the audience hasn’t seen or thought about before. Typically, you’re lucky to get a total of eight days. In this case, I was able to take four full days for the on-camera interviews alone. The difference is like day and night.”
Battaglia can devote years to a single project. That’s the case for his upcoming documentary film, Une jeunesse française (A French Youth), shot over five years with young men from the Maghreb (central/northern Africa) now living in the Camargue region of France. Part of the 2024 Hot Docs Official Selection, it’s set for theatrical release this fall.
With Adonis picking up five nominations for the Gémeaux Awards (which honour French-language work in Canadian TV and digital media), Battaglia is already working on another documentary for Télé-Québec. And, as always, he has others on the drawing board. When the world is your source of inspiration, you can never run out of ideas.
“The fascinating thing about documentaries is that they give us access to lives and ways of seeing things we could never have had otherwise,” Battaglia says. “The very essence of the documentary is, of course, providing a factual record of what’s happening in the world around us. Being able to put myself in someone else’s shoes and understand life from their point of view, is an opportunity just too good to pass up.”
Jérémie Battaglia’s hard-hitting documentary Adonis is available to watch on Télé-Québec.
Martin Grenier is a Quebec writer known for his contributions to Le magazine Cineplex and Fugues, where he has written extensively on LGBTQ+ issues and the screen industry. His work often highlights personal stories and cultural insights, making significant impacts in both communities.
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