EXCLUSIVE: Social media stars and the massive display screen not often make for straightforward bedfellows, however French TikTok duo Golo & Ritchie are bucking the development.
The comedian duo has been posting about their lives within the housing property of La Grande Borne within the commune of Grigny on the outskirts of Paris for the previous 5 years.
Grigny ranks as one of many poorest cities in France and hit the headlines in the summertime of 2023 after riots broke on the market in response to the capturing lifeless within the northern suburb of Nanterre of teenager Nahel Mezouk by a policeman, after he fled a routine visitors cease.
Golo & Ritchie’s posts present one other aspect to life within the property and its various neighborhood and have steadily amassed them 1.5 million followers on Snapchat, one other 661,000 on Instagram, and 578,000 on TikTok.
Their posts are additionally distinguished by the truth that Ritchie is autistic, which provides an additional layer to his relationship with Golo, who is decided to make his buddy dwell life to the total.
This friendship has been delivered to the massive display screen in Martin Fougerol and Ahmed Hamidi’s fly-on-the-wall documentary Golo & Ritchie, which captures the pair as they embark on a 600-mile (850 km) cycle journey from the southern port metropolis of Marseille again to Grigny.
Launched in France on August 14 by Apollo Films, the movie had generated 250,000 entries by August 26 (representing a gross of roughly $1.9M), the most effective field workplace for a French documentary since Gilles Perret’s La Ferme des Bertrand in early 2022.
“It’s an exceptional achievement for a documentary like this so we’re overjoyed,” says producer Hugo Sélignac at Chi-Fou-Mi who spearheaded the manufacturing.
The producer, whose credit embody The Stronghold, November and Cannes 2024 title Beating Hearts, first got here throughout the pair’s posts in the course of the depths of the second Covid-19 lockdown in late 2020.
“Whereas I didn’t discover the primary lockdown too exhausting, the second was more durable. I had two movies, The Stronghold and Mandibles that have been attributable to come out however the cinemas have been shut,” he recounts.
“A childhood buddy launched me to them and for the primary time in a very long time I discovered myself crying with laughter.”
Sélignac confirmed the duo’s posts to director mates Fougerol and Hamidi, which in flip gave beginning to the concept for the documentary.
“We got here to them very late. There have been already lots of people circling them, web websites and different media,” says Sélignac.
The concept of following Golo & Ritchie on a long-distance bicycle journey was sparked by the latter’s obsession with bikes.
“He places all the cash he earns from the social networks into bikes. He’s obtained one thing like 70 bikes in storage,” says Sélignac.
The buddies’ 10-day journey sees them making in a single day stops in a convent, the place they appeal the nuns; a social centre, the place they dine with an Afghan refugee actor who recounts the violence he noticed again house, and in addition to a luxurious spa retreat, giving a snapshot right into a broad part of French life.
The exchanges between the chums and the interactions with the individuals they met alongside the best way have been unscripted.
“The administrators set the premise of the biking journey and the itinerary however then we left them to get on with doing what they usually do… there have been a number of rushes, and the administrators actually discovered the movie in post-production,” says Sélignac.
He and the administrators understood they’d one thing particular on their arms on the again of a profitable preview screening on the Alpe d’Huez Worldwide Comedy Movie Competition in January.
“The primary screening was a nice shock. It’s an older viewers however the spectators have been overwhelmed by the movie, says Sélignac.
“Individuals who don’t know them, love the movie, whereas individuals who do know them, additionally just like the movie as a result of it affords one thing that goes past what they provide at no cost on the social networks.”
The producer believes that the wave of positivity generated in France by the profitable Paris 2024 Olympics, that noticed the nation come collectively after divisive parliamentary elections, has additionally performed its half.
“I don’t know if it could have labored as effectively a month in the past… I really feel the movie is in sync with the values of the Olympic video games in Paris and the constructive temper in France in its aftermath,” he suggests.
The movie’s unconventional tackling of incapacity has additionally gained it followers on the Worldwide Paralympics Committee (IPC).
Golo & Ritchie have been invited to hold the Paralympic flame earlier this week within the lead-up to the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paralympics in Paris on Wednesday, and as companions of its seventeenth version, they are going to be creating content material concerning the video games for his or her social media handles.
Trying to the long run, Fougerol and Hamidi are plotting a sequel that can see the duo cycle from the Senegalese capital of Dakar again to Grigny which they hope to shoot in 2025.
