This page is all about how an Invisible Bordeaux blog post about the influential silent movie star Max Linder became a song, and has just be...

100 years on, a music video pays homage to Max Linder, Ninette Peters, and daughter Maud

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This page is all about how an Invisible Bordeaux blog post about the influential silent movie star Max Linder became a song, and has just been adapted into a powerful short-form movie. View it here, and read on to get the full story!



Way back in 2012, the Invisible Bordeaux blog teamed up with Adam Roberts over at Invisible Paris to produce a joint item about Max Linder. In short, Max Linder, who was born Gabriel Leuvielle in Saint-Loubès on the banks of the Dordogne river slightly to the north of Bordeaux, was a prolific comedy film-maker who achieved tremendous success and fame far and wide in the early years of the 20th century, heavily influencing later greats including Charlie Chaplin.


The First World War put a momentary halt to his endeavours, and while his career hit many further highs both in Hollywood and in Europe, the post-War Max was a tortured soul. Aged 40 he married his teenaged sweetheart Ninette Peters, but their stormy and complex relationship culminated in the couple dying in a Paris hotel room in 1925. 


At the time of their death, Max and Ninette's daughter Maud was not even two years old. She was subsequently looked after by her maternal grandparents and Max Linder's very existence was almost airbrushed out of history, so much so that she initially grew up unaware of who her illustrious father was.  


When she found out, she sought to reconstruct his legacy piece by piece, compiling, documenting and restoring films (including reels that were reportedly found in the garden of the family residence, having been buried there by Max's brother). This resulted in Max Linder's work regaining its rightful place over the years, with Maud Linder producing books, documentaries and collectible box sets, and today much of what she uncovered is freely available on Youtube. Her labour of love lasted a lifetime, until her death aged 93 in 2017.  


All of the above formed the unusual basis of a song written, recorded and released by my band Slowrush in 2021: 'Secret Garden'. Fast-forward to 2025 and we were approached by a group of students at the ESD Bordeaux, École Supérieure du Digital (including my elder son, Nathan Pike), who for an end-of-year project used the song as the basis for a moving short-form film that was tightly scripted over a fortnight ahead of being shot and edited in under a week. 


The team behind the video presenting it to fellow ESD students and teaching staff. 

The video closely follows the structure of the song, focusing first on Maud Linder (played by Anouchka Csernakova) literally unearthing evidence of Max Linder's past, and then striving to sort through her father's output. The action then shifts back to 1925 and a visibly disturbed Max Linder (Rémy Dhelias) sharing a last dance with Ninette Peters (Léa Ray) ahead of their untimely death. The video closes with a long timelapse sequence that shows Maud sharing her findings with an impromptu gathering of acquaintances of all generations, keen to find out more about the overlooked Girondin movie star during an open-air viewing of snippets of the Max Linder canon. All the while, the backing music builds up into a crescendo, adding extra layers of tension until a lonesome Maud switches off the film projector.  


The end-product is an absolute delight to watch and everyone involved is very proud of playing a small part in raising awareness of what an incredible artist Max Linder was, and of the time, effort and energy that daughter Maud put into sharing his work with the world. Big thanks to the talented and inspiring actors Anouchka Csernakova, Rémy Dhelias, and Léa Ray, to the extras and musicians who were part of the one-off open-air movie theatre scene, and to everyone in the ESD team who translated a Slowrush song into the short feature!


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While the Opinion live experience is a quartet, in the studio it's the solo project of Hugo Carmouze, whom Invisible Bordeaux Music met ...

Invisible Bordeaux Music podcast: Opinion




While the Opinion live experience is a quartet, in the studio it's the solo project of Hugo Carmouze, whom Invisible Bordeaux Music met at the Parc du Prieuré de Cayac in Gradignan for this latest French-language podcast.

During our interview he revealed the secrets of his wall of sound on the excellent album Troisième Opinion, revealed a few behind-the-scenes details of his latest videos, explained the chronology of his album releases, dwelt on his collaborations with Lal Tuna, gave the reasons for his choice of greenery for the podcast recording... and shared how a rising star of shoegaze indie pop could possibly end up in Gradignan!

You can listen to the podcast below or else over on SpotifyApple PodcastsDeezerYoutubeAmazon MusicPocketCastsPodbean and RadioPublic ! Be sure to subscribe so that you don't miss forthcoming episodes!
Hugo Carmouze pictured during the podcast recording!

'Microrange' video



'19' video



Horrible Live Session 2024


And... don't forget the Spotify Invisible Bordeaux Music playlist, featuring tracks by the artists who have taken part in the Invisible Bordeaux Music podcast... alongside various songs mentioned in passing by the interviewees!




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