Synopsis

Young autistics have exceptional capacities, which, when they are developped, can give birth to beautiful projects, such as the one we would like to emphasize in our documentary.

Autism creates social isolation, but there are ways to fight it, and music appears to be a very effective therapy in this case, providing opportunities for artistic creativity and expression, and generating interesting social interactions.

The idea of this documentary is to talk about autism in a different way. Not in a medical, descriptive way, although we do want to explain some aspects of this pathology, but more in a demonstrative way of what kind of work is possible and initiated.

Our project is to talk about the adventure of a music band called Percujam. Everything starts in the medical and care institute of Bourg-la-Reine, France, that takes care of these young autistics. In 1999, one of the educators decides to create a music band with some of these young people, which ended up changing their lives.

Percujam is an atypical, unclassified band. Composed of educators, of professional singers and musicians, and of talentuous young autistics, the band has already shared scenes with famous french artists, such as Tryo, La Rue Ketanou, Marc Lavoine, Liz Mac Comb.... Their style would be somewhere between festive rock and intercontinental influences (zouk, reggae).

The same way sports do, arts and music can be a mean of development for persons who are a little different, such as autistics. But behind it all, there must be a sincere will of the educators to work with them, in order to allow such a project to take life. Percujam is the typical exemple of the union of a team, working together to give value to these young people through entertainment and art.

The educators, with the help of the director Catherine Allier and a psychiatrist doctor Gilles Roland-Manuel, have worked, accompanied, and supported some young persons whose artistic capacities were