competition

  Interview with Donato Sansone, director of Bavure [Dripping]  Is Bavure primarily a film or an example of surrealist automatic writing? Bavure is a bit of an “instinctive” short film that derives almost automatically from the end point of things I’d already dealt with in other works. There isn’t a real story, well actually there is one, but it’s simply banal because the story here is an […]

  An interview with Andrew Stephen Lee, director of Manila is Full of Men Named Boy  What elements of the story are based on real-life events? I was backpacking in Europe during Michael Jackson’s funeral and I was surprised at how many people gave me their condolences. I don’t know Michael Jackson at all so it was quite funny to me at the time. […]

  Interview with Nicolas Boone, director of Las Cruces  Why did you want to shoot in Bogota? How did you learn about the Las Cruces neighborhood? Julien Naveau, producer at Noodles Production, offered me to make a film in Bogota. I went there to scout the location. We visited several neighborhoods in the city. When I discovered “Las Cruces”, I knew right away that […]

  Interview with Antoine Giorgini, director of Air comprimé  Air comprimé is a film about the anxiety of becoming a parent. Can you tell us how this film came into being? The idea for the film came to me when I was about to become a father. I was in a strange state of mind at the time, I won’t get into the details but […]

  An interview with Esther Niemeier, director of Tracing Addai  At the beginning of this project, did you want to deal with war in general or with Daesh’s European fighters specifically? My motivation to make this film was mainly driven by the personal connection I have with the main protagonist, Addai, and his family as he is someone that I knew very well. Because […]

  Interview with Laurianne Escaffre and Yvonnick Muller, co-directors of Pile poil  Can you tell us about how Pile Poil, this extremely fair and formidably funny film, came into being? Yvonnick: Lauriane had spent a few days at a friend’s house, where her friend’s sister was preparing for her beautician certification… She was panicked, searching for a model for her practical exam. That’s when […]

  Interview with Sarah Van den Boom, director of Raymonde ou l’évasion verticale [Raymonde or the Vertical Escape]  Why did you place Raymonde in a rural environment, with gardens and nature? Because for me, Raymonde’s pastoral setting is part of the story, it is a context that is indissociable from the character. Raymonde is a woman of the countryside of yesteryear, she is not […]

  An interview with Kitao Sakurai, director of The Passage  How did you get the inspiration for the opening sequence in the plane? For us, the airplane scene is like a spiritual prelude to the rest of the film. It’s where the themes and ideas are presented within a surreal allegory. Also, I think the feeling of danger within the scene attunes the audience […]

  Interview with Yves Piat, director of Nefta Football Club  Why did you want to film in Nefta ? Initially, I wanted to film in Zagora, in the Moroccan desert, and that’s actually where the script began, on the Algerian border. I’m pretty familiar with the region around Zagora since I spent six days walking across the desert with a guide a few years […]

  Interview with Marine Levéel, director of La traction des pôles [Magnetic Harvest]  Can you tell us how La traction des pôles came into being? I wanted to write an love story without words, an internal story, and to create a portrait of sensitive characters who hide their true feelings, a bit like in the countryside of my childhood. I also wanted the film […]