How did you come up with the idea for The Elevator?
The original idea came from a television news piece that talked about elevators being installed as part of building renovations in older neighborhoods. In May 2019, in a Starbucks in Beijing, I pitched the idea to Jing Su and Li Ge, the producers of my earlier film Day Dream. They found the topic very interesting and Jing told me about Gilles Porte’s interactive film Tantale that she’d seen at the Clermont-Ferrand Festival when there was an opportunity for interactivity on the topic. When François Serre came to present Tantale in China in November 2019, I showed him the drafts of my script. He liked the idea and we started developing and writing up the interactive elements, the situations, the characters, the voting rules, and so on… Unfortunately, due to the Covid-19 pandemic and China’s health regulations, we were only able to make a linear version of the story in two acts.

Why did you want to portray human relations in the context of neighborly interaction rather than in another context, such as the family or workplace? 
Initially, the script was centered on the father and son, and less on the neighborhood connections. But after we decided to make an interactive film, the interconnected human relations of the inhabitants of an apartment block rapidly came to the fore. There was more opportunity for subtlety and realism, and for the viewer, there are more occasions for empathy.

Why were you interested in the question of accessibility for people with disabilities? Do you see yourself making other films on the subject?
By nature, people only worry about themselves, or at most about their family. Indifference and contempt are ordinary human behaviors… From my perspective, the question of this “ordinariness” is even more pronounced in vulnerable groups (refugees, the infirm, people with disabilities, etc.), where it’s also possible to question the place of political choices. Even if the issue of disabilities is useful to the narrative, as a young Chinese person, the question of voting, of choice, of personal interest and general interest is more of a motivating factor to me. For example, the distribution of the Gilles Porte’s film Tantale in China, which I helped with, was incredibly political: having people vote during a film screening, having each viewer’s smartphone connected to the projection, having the choices be written by an artist. For the moment, with respect to the future, I really hope that being selected at the Clermont-Ferrand Festival allows us to motivate investors in making an interactive version of the film. Because even if we keep the film to the same 12-minute length, we have to produce over sixty minutes for the different possible versions.

How did you mold the character of the officer?
For us in this film, the officer represents the State, “public politics” and, in the best-case scenario, general interest. In each of the branches of our interactive script, the officer defines at least the rules of voting. And lastly, he’s the key character because you can imagine numerous aspects. For example, you can easily think of disinterest, authoritarianism and corruption. He’s actually a very easy character to mold since he’s present everyday in ordinary life.

Have you thought about showing further shared moments from the lives of these neighbors? 
Though we used the idea of “ordinary human contempt” as a narrative motor and a way to generate empathy over the course of the short film, the main topic is the expression of a choice, or more precisely the outcome of a vote. We’re exploring the types of vote presented in the film and that’s what organizes our “living together”. That’s one of the things that connects France and China. So we didn’t think it was necessary to show another “shared moment”. We stayed focused on how the neighbors feel concerned, make their arguments official and on accepting collective decisions.

What’s your favourite short?
For this film, I had two short films in mind: Gilles Porte’s interactive short Tantale, with respect to the interactive script and recording techniques necessary to make a film that doesn’t stop and that has one beginning and multiple ends. And Roland Denning’s short Everything We Know About for its clear presentation of the fact that what makes us up personally the most are our choices, and how our choices can be formatted and exploited. For example, “liking” something on Facebook or Instagram, which we see as an expression of free choice, lets Meta’s artificial intelligence know us thoroughly.

What does the Festival mean to you?
Being Chinese, it’s obvious that the Clermont-Ferrand Festival is a springboard for me. It’s a Festival that helps me envision my future in film.

The Elevator is being shown as part of the National Competition F9.

Where did you get the idea for Rien d’important?  
After making a documentary where I’d filmed my sister and her friends I wanted to make a fiction film with people who hadn’t acted before, who would play themselves in directed improvisations, which we reworked live during shooting. I also wanted to make a film simply, with a really small group, with no financial demands that I’d have to wait years to have approved. The film looks at the difficult choice of leaving or staying in your hometown, the consequences of that choice. It’s a pretty crucial question for me that’s still keen. That said, I think the choice is also universal. In my opinion, that’s what keeps the film from being simply anecdotal.  

What was more important in your desire to make the film: the moment in our lives that you used as a starting point to create the characters and setting, or the desire to depict the characters precisely, in that moment, as in others that you might have imagined? 
The script came about from my experience as a seasonal dustman the summer after I graduated from high school. I didn’t write the characters in the classical sense of the term, they came about as the result of the work of the actresses I directed. Together we tried to find the right way to create the situation in the script. Sometimes we ended up radically changing the scenes. For example, the end of the film was simply meant as a moment of comedy, placed at the beginning of the story. In the end, it became a melancholy epilogue because of the way my sister experienced it on set. Similarly, what Flora tells Gaëlle in her long monologue comes in large part from her; through her own words and experiences, she expresses something that I also share. Despite how we made the film, I’d written a pretty detailed script, even though I never gave it to the actresses and actors. Not because it held some kind of secret that I didn’t want to share with them, but mostly to keep them from that inevitable construction that sometimes leads novice or amateur actors into a kind of falseness. 

What interests you about young adults and the period just after high school? 
I think it’s a period that I’m no longer in, so I have a bit of distance from it, which is necessary to make a relevant film out of it. Obviously, I’m also still close to that age, and that’s a happy medium. It meant something to me to represent rural working-class youth since that’s my own background: they are looked down on and underpaid, but are absolutely essential. At the same time, I didn’t want to dwell on that necessary representation of what I’m familiar with and know, and on the fact that it’s under-reprepresented. The characters are not sociological portraits whose sole aim is to provide a discourse that goes beyond the film. Flora and my sister are very aware of the world; they think for themselves at a time when it’s very difficult to come up with an original personal point of view. They’re part of a generation that’s sadder than the ones before it because they’re more conscious of the political and social stagnation of our country, and of the world in general. The film doesn’t aim to talk about that, but my personal interest in it and the people of their age does also come from there. 

How did you find the actresses? 
As I said, Gaëlle is my sister. Flora is the sister of one of my best friends. René is her father, a mechanic and dustman. I worked with him and have known him since forever. It’s impossible for me to recall ever meeting the other young actors since we’ve known each other since forever and are always bumping into each other. My grandmother is also in the film with her best friend/neighbor Marie Jeanne. Sometimes the characters were written for the people who play them, sometimes I asked myself who among my acquaintances could play them. 

What’s your favorite short? 
It’s nothing to do with my film, but Laurent Achard’s La Peur, petit chasseur [Fear, the Little Hunter] might be the short film I like most. Very impressive and rigorous, while also being simple and modest. 

What does the Festival mean to you?   
Rien d’important is my fifth short film and it’s extremely encouraging and rewarding for it to be selected at the Festival. Considering how personal the film is for me, and how precarious and unique its making was, I’m very happy to be able to share it with an audience, especially in a place like this. 

Rien d’important is being shown as part of the National Competition F8. 

What did you want to explore through Kao Li-Hsuan and Kao Cheng-Hsuan’s relationship?
During the pandemic in 2021, I went back to my hometown and spent two months with my mom and my brother. Although we had our phones to use and spent so much time on social media, we still felt very bored. Ten years ago, my brother and I would spend so much time together waiting for my mom to come home during the summer vacation. Even though we didn’t have smartphones, we still had a great time. I think times are changing too fast. When we get older, we spent less time with family. I wanted to commemorate these memories by sharing this story, the relationship between Kao Li-Hsuan and Kao Cheng-Hsuan and the house me and my brother stayed in (the house in the film is the house where I lived when I was a kid).

Why did you pick the issue with the water as a catalyst? 
The first version of the script was entitled “Summer Sun”. The original concept of the story was based on a super hot summer with the cicada singing all the time. Unfortunately, a typhoon hit land when we were shooting. We had to change the story setting into a rainy day, but I think it’s better than the previous version.

What sorts of stories and genres do you like to explore as a filmmaker?   
The themes of my films usually relate to my personal status; when I’m tangled up inside or have a situation or feeling that I can’t fix, I have a desire to let my emotions out – and add some fictional elements in order to turn my feelings into a story.

Who or what has been your biggest inspiration as a filmmaker? 
Shiang-chyi Chen, who’s a famous actress in Taiwan. She was also my teacher of acting in college. I love her very much.

What’s your favourite short? 
Actually, I have a long list of favorites, but there’s one that gave me a deep impression, it was And so We Put Goldfish in the Pool, (Japanese:うして私たちはプールに金魚を), 2017, by director Makoto Nagahisa.

What does the Festival mean to you?
This will be my first time attending an international film festival. Although my English is pretty basic, I’m looking forward to meeting filmmakers from all around the world. I hope that we can mingle and have so much fun together. 

Summer Rain is being shown as part of the International Competition I7. 

What was the starting point of Bergie? 
There were three elements that lead to Bergie’s conception. I live in Cape Town where it is a very common sight to see people sleeping on sidewalks. I heard a story about a person that was homeless who died, but people thought he was sleeping. I wondered for a long time how long it took for people to realise that the person lying there was actually dead. Secondly, there are a lot of homeless people close to my apartment. I sometimes see how law enforcement wake them up and remove them, while other times there are activists who try to block their removal by serving court papers. The scenes taking place behind our apartment block are usually quite dramatic. The third element that triggered Bergie was that, in the same area, there is a 5km fun-run every Saturday morning. Just after the start of the race, we would pass underneath a bridge where a lot of homeless people would be sleeping and, in the process, our running and stomping would wake them up. While running one of the races, these three elements clicked together as I thought that one of the ways in which you would realise a homeless person has died, is, unfortunately, when he or she is in your way. And usually, law enforcement deals with such a situation, not us. I therefore wrote the script with this location in mind, close to my apartment, where these different events were taking place. 

Can you explain what the word “bergie” means, in South Africa? 
The term “bergie” is a South Africanism that refers to people that are homeless, since they usually sought refuge on the slopes of Table Mountain (called “Tafelberg” in Afrikaans). As in Dutch and German, the word for “mountain” in Afrikaans is berg. With the “-ie” at the end, the word becomes a diminutive. 

Most of the shots are focused on the main character’s face and reactions. Did you shoot your film that way to enable the viewer to really invest themselves emotionally? 
Yes definitely, but another reason is to cut the rest of the world out. The camera not only captures what’s in front of it, but also eliminates the world around it. And that is important, because, in a similar way, there is a lot of information in real life that we do not have access to. I think this is a more honest way of storytelling, because it reflects our individual and limited experience of the world. I therefore not only wanted the audience to witness the main character’s reaction to the situation, but also to encourage the audience to use their imagination with regards to the off-screen space and, as a result, take part in the film’s meaning-making process. 

How do you hope audiences will react to the film?
I hope audiences will be encouraged to think about their own relation towards people that suffer and what such a responsibility might entail.

What is your favourite short film?
It’s a tie between Qiu Yang’s A Gentle Night and Sameh Alaa I Am Afraid to Forget Your Face. Charlotte Wells’s Laps is a close second.

What does the Festival mean to you? 
For me, Clermont-Ferrand represents a celebration of the short film format. While a lot of people see short films as stepping stones to features, I think it is a medium or format in its own right and, in many ways, can be more flexible and daring than features. The possibilities of pushing the short film format are endless. 

Bergie is being shown as part of the International Competition I5.  

What inspired you to make a mockumentary? It’s quite an original format! 
Clara: I wanted to portray the performative state of the present time. Not only the scene’s time, but also the speech, which always appears to be spontaneous. Inspired by YouTube videos and the works of the documentary maker Eduardo Coutinho, I understood that to make a work that would express the simplicity and greatness of the Brazilian marginalized women living in the state of Rio de Janeiro I would need to seek an absurd intimacy, between the documentary and the fictional world. It was important to ask, to confront, to doubt, to distrust and to find in a simple and intimate way to portray deep Brazil. Subversive not only in its noisy image, but also in its scenic and linguistic restraint. It is perhaps, for me, the best way to say that the improbable and the absurd can be totally real when we talk about cinema and Latin America. 
Gabriella: As a filmmaker, I’m always interested in the “betweens”. My previous films reflect this hybridism between documentary and fiction. Afeto (2019; 15′), for example, was an experimental documentary that used science fiction/ horror devices to question the symbolic erasure of women in Brazilian cities. To do so, I mixed archival footage, interviews, direct cinema, and academic research, creating a fictional narrative for concrete data. 

Who is Rose? Is she based on someone real?
Clara: Rose is a character I created inspired by the women in my family. She also represents – in a “decolonised” way – the spirit of the women who inhabit the outskirts of Rio. 

Where did you shoot the film? Whose house was it? 
Clara: It is my house. I chose it because of the metalanguage between character and author. I am interested in the fact that Rose has entered my house and is possibly fabricating my existence. The second reason is the desire for a documentary record of the house. The scene takes place in this real, living space, where nothing was altered for the film to be shot. 

How was it working as a directing duo?  
Both: We are a interracial female creative duo  living in the Brazilian diaspora, and we are interested in discussing the space of ugly films made in a country that exports beauty. We share a great creative affinity, but also inhabit experiences that differ greatly. ESCASSO ends up being the fruit of this as well: of these encounters and mismatches of our bodies and experiences.  

What are your respective filmmaking backgrounds? What projects do you have in the pipeline?  
Both: We are currently focusing on developing our solo projects, although we have some projects together for the coming years. 
Clara: Escasso is my first film. The result of long years of aesthetic and linguistic study. A materialization of the concept I have been developing: decolonial melodrama. I studied aesthetics and theatre theory at UNIRIO.  I am a black woman raised in the suburbs of the city of Rio de Janeiro, I grew up in the “Pedreira” slum. Amidst a lot of culture, manifestations of African religion, and violence. Melodrama allows me to explore this popular culture. In 2021 I was selected by Netflix to join the “CoCreative Lab” program, a course for black writers in Brazil. My next works are related to this concept of mine, the Decolonial Melodrama. My next film is about memory and settlement. It is called Retract, it is about identity, registration and celebration. 
Gabriella: I have two projects in the pipeline, a short-movie and a feature film. Both are focused on latin american women and use fantastic realism devices to tell histories of women and their mythological-ancestral relationship with the sea, which has been my research for some years. Miradas (que ya no se encuentran) is fictional short movie that raises questions about the construction of “border identities” in a context of globalization and clash of cultures of a megalopolis like São Paulo. The other project I would like to focus on is Ejá, my first feature: I study indigenous and Afro-Brazilian foundational myths to draw a direct dialogue with Barravento, the first feature film by Brazilian filmmaker Glauber Rocha. Escasso is my 5th film as a director, but the second as a co-director* – an arrangement I truly believe in. I’m definitely influenced by where I grew up and the women who raised me. I was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, more specifically in Tijuca, a neighbourhood surrounded by samba schools, bars, favelas and middle class apartments of military families households. My work is focused on narratives of strong female characters in decolonial perspectives. I’ve been working developing audiovisual projects for Brazilian companies such as Conspiração Filmes and currently Delicatessen Filmes. I’m writing a doc-series for HBOMax Brasil while I direct commercial projects. 

What’s your favourite short?  
Clara: República by Grace Passô, Zombies by  Baloji, Alma no Olho by Zozimo Bulbul, Dias de Greve by Ardley Queiroz and Rap, o canto da Ceilândia by Ardley Queiroz.  
Gabriella: I’m sure I’m forgetting here movies I love and that were fundamental to me, but here we go… Blue by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, República by Grace Passô, Fantasmas by Gabriel Martins , Big in Vietnam by Mati Diop, Dreaming Gave Us Wings by Sophia Nahli Allison.  

What does the Festival mean to you?  
Both: We believe in the power of the ” short film” format. As independent Brazilian filmmakers, being in Clermont-Ferrand, one of the oldest and most important short film festivals in Europe, represents a lot! Escasso was financed by the two of us and our scarce resources. We made the film in the pandemic, with the help of collaborators who, like us, believed in the idea and the power of the film. To see where Ms. Rose and this story has taken us, is the realization of many dreams. It’s also the accomplishment of a lot of hard work! Being in Clermont means the possibility to exchange with filmmakers and film lovers from all over the world, and hopefully create viability for our future projects – as a creative duo, and individually. 

Escasso is being shown as part of the International Competition I14.   

alk to us about the bond that unites the Voyager and Alain’s journey.
The Voyager space mission was started by NASA in the 70s with the goal of exploring the solar system and of sending signals of our societies on Earth to potential alien civilizations. It was a message in a bottle thrown into an immense and mysterious ocean. This desire to surpass known limits reminded me of Alain’s utopia, his vision of the future, it too hurtled toward the unknown. In both cases, there is a radical desire for the unknown and of otherness. Alain is working on a project of overhauling the automobile industry, based on an absolute approach of mobility. Having himself experienced this in his social and professional trajectory, he now wants to elevate it to the level of an industrial and human revolution. He is inspired by transhumanist thought, by his democratic current let’s say. He believes this evolution necessary to attain social justice. But the frontier between vision and ideology is sometimes very thin…and Alain is resolved to move forward no matter the cost. With this drive, he could be overcome by the mechanism that he would like to surpass. Will his revolution be in line with his goal or will it reproduce a pattern of domination? Each viewer is free to answer.

Who or what inspired this character?
During my studies in industrial design, a former student was invited to speak to us about his career. He had become an executive in a large French company. On this occasion, he related an event that took place on his first day at work. He was going around the offices to visit his new workplace and when he went to shake hands with a future team-member, that person asked him to empty the waste bin, thinking he was a custodian or janitor, simply because he was black. This story never left me and it was upon this anecdote that the film was gradually constructed.

Could you explain the choice of title?
Le Jour où j’étais perdu borrows from the title of a story by James Baldwin, an American writer that never stopped preaching love and fraternal healing, surpassing differences of culture, background, and this in spite of wounds of the past. I also chose this title because it evokes a decisive moment for me that is scary and deep all at once. Often, when one is lost, it becomes impossible to turn, to change something within ourselves, for better or for worse.

Music plays an important role in your film. How did you create this soundtrack?  
The music in the film is composed of several moments that are rather varied in genre and include emotive tonalities. One of the principle pieces is at the beginning of the film, with the reinterpretation of the second aria of Queen of the Night of The Magic Flute by Mozart, created for the film by Othman Louati a rhythmic and imaginary process with a touch of sci-fi and an epilogue that evokes childhood while Alain looks at starlings. Othman is a composer who has a large knowledge of the classical repertoire, but also a taste for electronic and contemporary experimental music, as well as pop music. It was important for me to work with an eclectic composer because the film is about pushing boundaries, and the music needed to be approached in the same way. In Thomas’ apartment for example, one of the “sci-fi” moments of the film, we used Arabic tonalities, a contribution of the composer Geoffroy Lindenmeyer, with whom I worked on previous films. The universe of science-fiction belongs to a very Western imaginary. I wanted to shake up this cultural imaginary at the moment of the film where Thomas loses himself, where he seriously questions himself.

Talk a bit about the film’s cinematography and special effects.
My career in design was a source of inspiration for the film’s esthetic, which unfolds in the field of industrial creation. It is a world of shapes, volumes, surfaces, material. The dialogue between these elements is always important in cinema, but was even more so in this case. The general idea was to film machines in a way that suggested their vitality, and conversely humans as machines, alienated by work, caught up in automatic reflexes. Regarding the special effects, the main challenge was to reproduce the Voyager space probe and the planets of the solar system in a realistic way, by trying to create a sense of identification and emotion rather than distance. Beside the shots in space, which are completely fabricated images, there were other, simpler, interventions that allowed us to include elements like the moon or the starlings in the shots. It was important to me to create points of contact between nature and the film’s characters, Alain and Thomas, that their glances interrogate nature at some point, as if trying to pierce through its mystery.

What are your inspirations in cinema or otherwise?
The approach and the work of Stanley Kubrick. I’m thinking particularly of Napoléon, the film that he was not able to produce, but for which the entire process of documentation was edited: correspondence, costume studies, location scouting photos, versions of the screenplay, storyboard. Allemagne année zero et Rome ville ouverte by Roberto Rossellini as well.

What’s your favorite short?
At Land by Maya Deren or La Jetée by Chris Marker.

What does the Festival mean to you?
It’s that festival that showed my first short, Nuits closes, which was self-produced, in 2005. I really like this festival and the way it is able to fill up an entire city, mixing the professionals and audiences. I particularly wanted to come back to the festival with this film, after so many years.

Le Jour où j’étais perdu [One Day When I Was Lost] is being shown as part of the National Competition F10. 

What inspired you to tell the story of Xiaomei?
Xiaomei is a Liuquin opera actress who escapes from her hometown Cangshan, doing house cleaning work in Shanghai. When she returns to Cangshan to her distanced relatives, her estranged husband and her mother with Alzheimer’s, she has mixed feelings. She wants to take her mother to live with her in shanghai, while her older sisters want her to talk to her separated husband. Then, Mr. Song, her boss from shanghai, calls. Xiaomei is lost and doesn’t know what to do, and she suddenly notices that her hometown Cangshan has been re-named. Cangshan is my hometown. As a filmmaker, hometown is a subject I always want to talk about. I left many years ago for work. Many people from my town face the same situation in order to survive. One day, when I returned to Cangshan, my family told me that Cangshan had been renamed. When I heard that, I felt very complicated emotions, which were buried like a seed in my heart. After several years of precipitation, it slowly became the movie Nowhere Float that everyone can see now.

Can you tell us a bit about your interesting choice to have a silent character, the mother who suffers from Alzheimer’s?
Alzheimer’s is a disease of forgetting. The mother is a metaphor for the relationship between the protagonist, Xiaomei, and her hometown Changshan. They have been forgotten as time goes by.

What filmmakers have inspired you?
Alfonso Cuarón and Krzysztof Kieślowski. Dekalog directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski left a deep impression on me.

What’s the best film-related advice you’ve ever been given?
To do what you want to do and insist upon it.

What do you expect from the Festival?
First of all, I hope the audience and judges will like my film, and then I hope that the committee can help me connect with people who can give me directions in my future film creation.

Nowhere Float is being shown as part of the International Competition I2.

What was the starting point of Mulika?    
The idea of Mulika came when I was questionning the future of Congo, a country with gigantic mineral deposits but with a population that does not benefit from them. As an Afrofuturist filmmaker I wanted to imagine a future for my country and create a way to escape the exploitation of the present day by connecting with our cultures and our ancestors.

Can you tell us a bit about afrofuturism?
Afrofuturism is the projection into the future and a representation of the Africa in the future by creating fantasies to build a future which is connected to the African culture and dream.

Your film deals with the fact that Congo possesses huge mineral deposits, but the population does not benefit from them. Do you hope your film will start a conversation about this issue?
Yes, this film is a good tool to start a conversation about the minerals reality in Congo and also to think about solutions to that problem through a projection into the future. I had a good conversation when I presented the film in Goma with a Congolese audience and with other audiences.

What are your next projects? 
My next project is The Man Who Dreams the Space. It’s a feature documentary film about the story of Keka, an African genius engineer who dreams of aerospace in a country in the throes of war following its gigantic underground mineral wealth. Troposphere, a family of rockets made in the Democratic Republic of Congo in Kinshasa is the initiative of Keka Aerospace, a subsidiary of the Développement Tous Azimuts company. Keka’s goal is to be able to orbit satellites from Congo, but he is still seeking financial involvement from the Congolese government to make this achievable.

What is your favourite short film?
Until the Quiet Comes by Khalil Joseph.

What does the Festival mean to you?
Clemont-Ferrand is one of biggest short film festivals in the world. For me, presenting Mulika at this festival is a good opportunity to have a discussion with a big audience about this particular history of Congo.

Mulika is being shown as part of the International Competition I6.

Your film deals with two young Israelis, one trying to escape compulsory military service. Why did you want to tell their story?
It’s easy to forget sometimes, that soldiers are teenagers. They get drafted at 18, and being expected to abruptly cut off their adolescence. I wanted to present the discord of the teenage soldier, that of normal and candid raw impulses in an atmosphere of duty and discipline. I tried to capture an experience of the army, that is well known in Israel but under spoken, of not-wanting-to-be-there. Not because of noble Ideologies but because of precious youth.    

Do you try, through your films, to portray a new generation that through its refusal of compulsory military service hopes for a different future?
Through my film I try to convey the tension between the compulsory social standard of the military service in Israel and the desire for free will and liberty in the last years of youth. I think that this tension underlies social struggles within the Israeli society. I’m not sure I speak for or present a whole generation, but I’m certainly hoping for a much different future, even if it’s harder than ever to imagine with the current regime. 

What turned out to be the hardest part for you while making the film and why?
The film was shot between Covid-19 lockouts, which was extremely difficult for many logistic reasons. But the hardest part was the casting. We had to find actors with the potential to have a fluid gender look. We auditioned both males and females actors for both main parts. Than we mixed and matched those we liked in different variations. It was a long process and it was more challenging than usual, but also very unique and we are very happy with the decision of the cast. 

How did you work with the actors in terms of character development?
The first phase of development for each character was to try and convey the fluidity of gender. An essential part of the film was to create a story with minimum information about the protagonists. The social-class, history and most significant- their gender is not obvious. We had to work on movement and speech. We had to create a dialog that will not disclose gender but will still be natural and fluent. I asked the actors to decide for themselves what gender their characters are, but not to tell me or one another. Because they are not confused, but we are.

What’s your favourite short?
Well, I can’t choose a favourite film, it’s an impossible task. But I can choose a film that somehow helped me with the making of my short film. While working and struggling with the script, I got a recommendation to watch Chantal Akerman’s short film I’m Hungry, I’m Cold (J’ai faim, j’ai froid). It helped me to allow myself to feel free with ambiguity of the characters, their motives and the plot in general. It has a special rhythm and a weird sense of humour. I love it and recommend to watch and rewatch again every once in a while.

What does the Festival mean to you?
I’ve known of Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival since I made my first short film 12 years ago. It was always in the top of the submission list of my films and this is the first time I have a chance to participate and visit the Festival. It’s obviously a big landmark and I allow myself to be very proud of me.

Hafra’at Hitmotetut Hamoshava [Colony Collapse Disorder] is being shown as part of the International Competition I11.

What was the starting point for Cut? 
I always have a longing for acting in the field. However, the minor actor didn’t have a chance. What if I’m the main character? I came to think of the short film Cut with this thought. 

What was your cinematic inspiration for Cut?  
I just wanted to act. However, I didn’t have a chance to act. Life was getting difficult. Before going to work in the kitchen of a seafood restaurant on a small island, I wanted to film a fun movie with my colleagues lastly. So I filmed a short film Cut. 

How do you hope audiences will react the film?
I hope it’s memorable. In the meantime, I hope the audience have too much focus on the fact that it was too violent. Also, I want you to remember Son Min-zun. 

What’s your favourite short film?  
Devon Avery’s One-Minute Time Machine. A limited space, a short running time. Fun and wit. I enjoyed watching it so much, and I still like it and remember it after a few years. 

What does the Festival mean to you?
In fact, I was not familiar with Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival. Because, I was washing dishes in the kitchen of a seafood restaurant until I was invited to some other film festivals. After hearing news from the distributor, I searched for the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival on the Internet. For the first time, I screamed with joy. Yay!

Cut is being shown as part of the International Competition I6.