SYNOPSIS
Festival du Film Britannique
GB - 1999 - 110 mins
Directed by Stephen Daldry
Billy Elliot is an 11-year-old boy liv-
ing in north east England in the mid-
1980s.  While  his  gruff  father  and
brother are taking part in a massive
coal miners strike, Billy goes to box-
ing  lessons  and  furtively  plays  his
dead  mother's  piano  out  of  loneli-
ness.  One  day  Billy  notices  a  ballet
class  nearby.  Intrigued,  he  begins
practising  and  taking  lessons  from
Mrs.  Wilkinson  (Julie  Walters),  a
tough-minded  teacher.  Billy  begins
to  fall  in  love  with  ballet  but  keeps
his lessons a secret from his family,
who  struggle  to  put  food  on  the
table while the strike drags on.
INFOS PRATIQUES FESTIVAL DES SCOLAIRES
du 4 au 7 octobre 2007
Place de cinéma : 5 €
Nos 5 salles proposent 
des projections de 10h 
à minuit :
Les 2 Alizés
2, boulevard Albert 1er (2 salles)
Palais des Arts et du Festival
2, boulevard Wilson (1 salle)
Salle Stéphan Bouttet
Rue Sadi-Carnot (1 salle)
Salle Alfred Hitchcock
Parking Raphaël Veil
(Structure amovible - 1 salle)
Retrouver toutes les informations 
et la programmation sur :
Atelier Beauvais - Dinard © Festival du Film Britannique 2007
www.festivaldufilm-dinard.fr
Billy Elliot
by Stephen Daldry
Merci à Lisiane RAULT et à Jean et Evelyne SOUILLET 
d’avoir participé à la réalisation des documents 
pour les films du Festival Scolaire.
 CAST
Jamie Bell as Billy Elliot
He is more interested in music, a pas-
sion he inherited from his late mo-
ther, than in boxing, his father
dream. He secretly decides to drop
out of boxing to take up dancing.
Julie Walters as Mrs. Wilkinson
Billy’s teacher, she’s not knowing that
Billy kept the classes secret from his
family, and tells his father that he has
missed an important audition.
Gary Lewis as Dad
Billy’s father, an admirer of real life
world boxing champion Ken
Buchanan, has dreams that Billy
could help the family out of their eco-
nomic situation by becoming a boxer.
Jamie Draven as Tony
Billy’s brother, he goes on strike with
their father.
NOTES QUIZZ
The miners' strike of 1984-1985 was Why this title ?
one of the most bitter industrial dis-
putes Britain has ever seen. The cat-
alyst for the strike was the announce- When was the film made ?
ment by the National Coal Board
(NCB) on 6th March 1984 that it Who’s the film director ?
intended to cut national capacity by 4
million tonnes and close 20 pits with
the loss of 20,000 jobs. Cortonwood When does the story take place ?
Colliery in South Yorkshire was to
close imminently. Where does it take place?
More than half the country's 187,000
mineworkers are on strike.
By January 1985, the strike was Is the music important ? Why ?
beginning to disintegrate as miners
facing increasing financial hardship, Why is Billy a ‘different’ boy ?
returned to work in increasing num-
bers. The NCB had offered incentives
to return to work before Christmas. What’s his father’s reaction to this ?
Consequently on 3rd March 1985, a
year from the start of the strike, the Who could have possibly inspired
NUM's National Executive voted 98-
Billy in the beginning ?
91 in favour of an organised return to
work.
Do you know someone among your
friends who is ‘different ‘?
How do YOU react ?