DOMAINES OTT*
Readings of great texts from world literature related to the sea
© Mickaël Huard / Say Who
Mobilis in Mobile
It was at the wine estate of Clos Mireille, one of the three jewels in the Domaines Ott* crown, that the first cultural initiative of the Louis Roederer Foundation took shape. The setting was enchanting, a majestic location on the edge of the Mediterranean, just a stone’s throw from the Fort de Brégançon. Inspired by the spellbinding natural environment and Managing Director Jean-François Ott’s passion for the sea, the Louis Roederer Foundation came up with Mobilis in Mobile. The event’s name echoes the motto of Captain Nemo and his Nautilus in Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. It celebrates the movement of water and the fluidity of words, inviting actors to bring to life the world’s great literary texts linked to the sea.
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Julie Gayet
The Odyssey attributed to Homer, Greece, 8th century BCE.
The founding epic poem of Western literature, it narrates the tumultuous odyssey of the hero Ulysses (Odysseus in Greek), whose maritime trials symbolise both the obstacles that man must overcome and the elusive desire to return to oneself.
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Bruno Putzulu
The Whale’s Path (El camino de la ballena) by Francisco Coloane, Chile, 1962
Coloane takes us to the heart of the southern seas, where man confronts the raging elements in a primordial struggle, written in an understated style that captures the raw essence of nature.
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François Marthouret
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, England, 1798
This founding poem of English Romanticism is a dreamlike, symbolic tale of guilt and redemption. The old sailor, weighed down by the weight of a sacrilegious act, wanders the endless waves, carrying the burden of his transgression.
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Suliane Brahim – Comédie Française
Woman at Sea (Le Grand Marin) by Catherine Poulain, France, 2016
Inspired by her own experience, Catherine Poulain plunges the reader into the icy, unforgiving waters of Alaska, where the struggle for survival reveals the deepest nature of human beings. A novel about a search for one’s self in a world where the sea imposes its law.
2024 programme
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Stéphane Olivié Bisson
The Long Way (La Longue Route) by Bernard Moitessier, France, 1971
A testimony to a life dedicated to the ocean, The Long Way is the story of a solo sailor in search of absolute freedom. Rejecting competition and glory, Moitessier chose the immensity of the sea as his ultimate escape.
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Anne Brochet
An Iceland Fisherman (Pêcheur d’Islande) by Pierre Loti, France, 1886
A tragic and poetic fresco, an Iceland Fisherman depicts with unique sensitivity the destinies of men linked to the sea, in an eternal struggle with the inescapable. A hymn to thwarted love, in which the sea becomes a metaphor for human passions.
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Read by all the actors.
The Story of a Seagull and the Cat that Taught her to Fly (Historia de una gaviota y del gato que le enseñó a volar) by Luis Sepúlveda, Chile, 1996
A modern and moving fable, this universal tale skilfully tackles the themes of friendship, transmission and respect for nature, embodied in the tender relationship between a philosophical cat and an orphaned seagull.
