Enter your email Address

Fest_25_carre_retina
Fest_25_carre_retina
Make a donation Press
Fest_25_new_retina
  • La Jetée

    Clermont-Ferrand

    • Documentation Center
    • Regular Events
    • Short film screenings
    • Training
    • Seminars
    • All Shorts
  • Short Film 31 JAN. > 8 FEB.

    Festival

    • Participate
      • Overview
      • Submit a film
      • Become a volunteer
      • Student Juries
      • Survival guide for newcomers
      • Professionals
      • Ticket Office
    • Discover more
      • Catalogues
      • Festival Newsletter
      • Prizes 2024
      • Le Trombino
      • Code of conduct
      • Our commitments
      • La Brasserie du court
    • Useful information
      • Coming to Clermont-Ferrand
      • Accomodation
      • Restaurants
      • Festival Locations
    • Archives
  • Short Film 3 > 6 FEB.

    Market

    • Overview
    • MEDIA Rendez-vous
    • Euro Connection
    • Shortfilmwire+
    • Participate
      • On site
      • Remotely
    • Pro Reception Desk
    • Prepare my visit
  • Short Film

    Circulation
    • Circuit Court
    • Screen festival programs
    • Plein Champ Network
    • Shortfilmdepot
  • Short Cuts

    Professionnalisation

    • Residences
    • Training
    • Support
    • Workshops
  • Education and

    Training
    • Upcoming events
    • Actions
      • Young audience screenings
      • Educational workshops
      • Anatomies
      • L’Atelier
      • Young critics competition
        • Young critics competition 2018
        • Young critics competition 2017
      • Ciné en herbe
    • Devices
      • Culture at the hospital
      • Culture in prison
      • Kindergarten at the cinema
      • High school at the cinema
      • Cinema sections
    • Training
      • Short Film Festival
      • Teaching cinema
      • School and cinema
      • Middle school at the cinema
      • High school at the cinema
      • Cinema sections
      • PREAC cinema
      • MIRE / ESPE
    • Resources
      • Educational tools
      • Transmission impossible
      • Le fil des images
      • Transmettre le cinéma
      • Ressources by film
      • Côté Court – LDVTV
        • Côté Court 2019
        • Côté Court 2018
        • Vu en court 2017
        • Vu en court 2016
        • Vu en court 2015
        • Vu en court 2014
        • Vu en court 2013
        • Vu en court 2012
  • Our newsletters
  • News
  • Archives
  • About us
  • Team
  • Partners
  • Advertisement

© Sauve qui peut le court métrage

Legal Mentions | Privacy

  • FR
  • EN
  • Breakfast with La place du mort [The Dead Man’s Place]

    20 January 2020
    Festival, Meeting with…
    By Abla Kandalaft
    • place-du-mort-la_rvb-3

     

    Interview with Victor Boyer, director of La place du mort [The Dead Man’s Place]

    What did you want to explore in the relation between the two brothers?
    Initially, I was more interested in Samuel’s trauma rather than the relation between the two brothers: the death of one twin and the survivor’s arbitrary choice of identity. That past history made him a character with a fluid outline, and a faintly fantastical tint, so much so that when I was writing, I had fun imagining him as coming straight out of a story by Edgar Allan Poe or HP Lovecraft. There was this noir romanticism thing going on that I really liked in the character and also this incredible vertigo about identity. It was only later, when I was coming up with the character Alphonse, the son who’s adopted to take the place of the dead twin, that the film became a sort of cruel tale on the brothers’ rivalry with fratricide as a possible convergence line. Even though the tragedy belongs as much to the one as to the other (the one who lived through it and one who’s meant to make amends for it), only Alphonse has the ability to turn it into a story. Samuel is stuck in the trauma, whereas Alphonse takes advantage of it. That’s what sets off Samuel’s madness: the feeling of not only having his place but also his own history stolen from him. A sentence by someone whom I can’t recall now clearly illustrates this problem of the family story and the legitimacy of taking possession of it: ” A writer is the worst thing that can happen to a family!”

    Are there any biographical or autobiographical elements in the story?
    There are a few autobiographical elements in the film. For example, my little brother is genuinely a writer (but I never shot at him with a hunting rifle!).

    Tell us a little bit about the set where you shot, the big house and the surrounding woods. How did you find them? What was it like shooting there?
    The house where we filmed belongs to my grandmother. I had very vague memories of it as I hadn’t been back since I was a kid, but when I started writing the film, it was the one place that immediately came to mind. It’s a place where you can feel family secrets and ghosts oozing from every crack. But I came up with the secrets and the ghosts. Unlike the film’s atmosphere, the one on set was very joyous!

    How did you work on finding the actors?
    I already knew Corentin Fila, who’s a friend. For the part of Samuel, I took stock of the challenge that the film’s opening monologue represented, facing the camera, without any cuts, with a literary dimension. That’s what led me to suggest Christophe Montenez for the part. I’d seen him several times at the Comédie Française and loved his work, and I was sure he’d be able to deliver the speech as I’d imagined it. The first woman I met was Valentine Catzéfils who moved me in Jean Paul Civeyrac’s beautiful film, A Paris Education, and she introduced me to Anne Loiret, who plays Solange, the mother.

    What are your future film plans?
    I’m getting ready to shoot my final student film at La Fémis. The film brings together an industrialist’s family one evening, all gathered together in a manor house, cynically preparing the terms of survival in a world in flames, while an armed band of ecologists draws closer in the night to attack. The son and heir comes with his new girlfriend who, we find out, is an infiltrator…

    Which works did you draw from?
    I always find it a little overwhelming to put a film under the aegis of one or several guiding films. Let’s say it varies. For this one, I had Fanny and Alexander as much in mind as Step Brothers!

    Have you discovered any advantages that the short film form offers?
    I haven’t made a feature film yet, so I don’t have any point of comparison, but I think I make short films that are too long! And when I make films, the idea of freedom frightens me somewhat, I find it inhibiting to be able to do whatever you want. I find constraints, on the other hand, stimulating… Let’s say that I’m eager to change formats!

    La place du mort [The Dead Man’s Place] is part of National Competition F5.

    auvergne, competition, national
    Networks
    Recent posts
    • 2025 Panorama: geographical focus

      6 November 2024
    • 2025 panorama: Theme in focus

    • 2025 OST Challenge

    • Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival unveils 2025 poster

      19 September 2024
    • 23rd Lab Competition

      17 December 2023
    • 36th International Competition

    • 46th National Competition

    • 2024: A singular edition

      16 November 2023
    • Kickstarter x ClermontFF

      3 November 2023
    Blog
    Dernier verre avec To Sonny (Cher Sonny)
    Night cap with Tienminutengesprek [School’s Out]
    0
  • FR
  • EN
  • Ville de Clermont-Ferrand Département du Puy-de-Dôme Clermont Métropole CNC Ministère de la culture et de la communication Région Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Europe Media
    All partners
    Clermont ISFF | Breakfast with La place du mort [The Dead Man’s Place] | Clermont ISFF
    class="post-template-default single single-post postid-30248 single-format-standard samba_theme samba_left_nav samba_left_align samba_responsive fl-builder-2-8-6-1 thvers_104 framework_99 wpb-js-composer js-comp-ver-7.7.2 vc_responsive"