Plaquages (2017)

They are young and strong...professional rugby players. Their career is short and demands extreme physical and mental commitment. Through rare access to French rugby club LOU in Lyon, the viewer is invited into the work-out and locker rooms where players get in shape or get debriefed, massaged and patched-up after the game. Throughout a week of hard work for team and staff, the film captures the tension building up to the day of the match. While "the show" on the field unfolds as a backdrop, the camera explores the workings of an intensely commercial, globalized sport. The film closes in on the steely bodies of athletes trained in combat, never losing sight of the fact that they are as human as the next man.