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. 

Can you tell us little bit about how your film came about? It’s the story of a young man with a disability and his caregiver and how their relationship is thrown into disorder when the caregiver decides to leave.   
The idea for this film emerged when three friends – a director, an actor and a producer – wondered if the story that linked them together should perhaps be told as a film. Alexis Dovera (the producer), Laurent Target (the actor) and myself have all worked as caregivers for our mutual friend, Louis Milhet, a young computer engineer with a disability. In those moments when the professional and personal intermingle, we all grew closer to Louis and his disability quickly become a simple logistical consideration.Auxiliaire is my first short film and it was important for me to talk about something that I had personally experienced in order to offer a sincere film that was rich in details and capable of opening a window onto disabilities and the caregiver’s job.

How did you work with the actors to get them to embody the complex relationship?
I had time and I took the time.
I had time to rehearse with Etienne and Laurent, some ten days, which allowed me to tinker with the script and adapt the dialogue to their personalities.
I took the time to have them get to know each other, talk and really have fun. I organized informal moments in bars, at parties, at Louis’ house. That might seem futile, but I actually think that’s what makes their relationship work on screen: because they created a genuine connection off-camera.

How did you select the two main actors?
We created Marc with and for Laurent Target. I’ve known Laurent for years and I was eager to be able to direct him. When we came up with the idea for the film, it was obvious we couldn’t do it without him. Quentin was a lot more complicated to choose. Initially, I wanted Louis Milhet to play himself, but rehearsals didn’t pan out and the bodily toll it would have taken on him shooting at night made it impossible for him to come aboard calmly. We auditioned fifteen or so young men with disabilities who were not actors. But I didn’t find the person I was looking for. The rapport with Laurent didn’t work. So we organized another audition, but this time included genuine professional actors. When we got to Etienne Cocuelle, he immediately clicked with Laurent, but the ethical side was another story. We knew how important and necessary it was to represent a body with disabilities on film, but we had to face the fact that we were only a few weeks from beginning shooting and we hadn’t found a hidden pearl among the people we’d seen. I decided to work with Etienne Cocuelle who I had total confidence in.

Why are you interested in the presence and representation of people with disabilitie on screen?
Just like it’s essential to show trans people, women who are not objectified and all underrepresented minorities in film, representing people with disabilities on screen is a necessary political act and we still have a long way to go. The simple fact that we were unable to find an actor with a disability who fit the character we’d written is proof enough. It’s surely because they think they have no chance that few people with disabilities try their hand at the theater or films, and it’s easy to understand if you think about the place that films relegate them to: acting in dramatic films (What if having a disability weren’t so dramatic?) or bad comedies where the disability is objectified front and center. With Auxiliaire I wanted to talk about the disability without making it an issue. Working with Louis taught me that; it’s the way other people look at them that remind people with disabilities of their condition. It was exactly that way of looking that I wanted to help change. Though I was unable to find a person with a disability to play Quentin, I’m still quite proud of the film which makes us forget the disability by showing it in all its detail. I think lifting the veil on all those unknown aspects is the way we can help them enter our collective imagination as simple, basic elements.

What’s your favorite short?
Xavier Legrand’s short film Just Before Losing Everything made a big impression on me: it has the great strength of turning a neglected topic into a genuine spectacle. It really grabs your guts, it’s surprising and moving. In a few short minutes, I became that woman and I was afraid of male violence. It was one of the first times in my life when I understood what it means to be in someone’s power and I felt the devastating effect that that had on the woman. It’s precisely to create those types of experiences that I want to be a filmmaker.

What does the Festival mean to you?
Since I’ve been aware of its existence, I’ve seen the Clermont-Ferrand Festival as far away and unattainable for someone self-taught like me. People talked about it as a necessary step in a filmmaker’s career. By training, I’m an architect, and five years ago I followed my dream of making films, and this will be my first time coming to the Festival to support a film. I’m very happy it’s at Clermont-Ferrand’s Festival.

Auxiliaire is being shown as part of the National Competition F1.

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. 

What did you wish to explore through Livia and Louis’ relationship? 
The complexity of sibling love. I think that brothers and sisters are capable of experiencing extreme emotions for each other; they can unconditionally hate and love one other. I initially wanted to make a film about the personal journey of a sister faced with her brother’s illness, but after all, I think that the film talks mostly about brotherhood and the deepness of that bond. 

The brother-sister relationship is particularly convincing thanks to Alice de Lencquesaing and Jonathan Genet’s acting. How did you direct them? Did being an actor yourself help you direct? 
I would say that being at actor helps me direct other actors. My job is to find the point of truth in the role and then to find a way to bring the actor to that point. I wanted Alice and Jonathan to meet well before filming started. I proceed in the same way when I produce a play: a period of deskwork followed by a period of rehearsals. We work off-screen, like with the characters’ shared past for example. This creates an understory and invaluable ties which the actors can then exploit. Jonathan Genet has this unique and sometimes strange beauty and I found it suiting for the character’s duality. After all, it is a character study. We talked about many films and we decided only to let small glimpses of his illness appear because we did not want to caricature the role. Jonathan also does theater. With small touches, we strived for the eloquence and the intensity of acting for the theater that seemed right for this character. Alice de Lenquesaing had little text, so it was important that everything pass through silences and looks. Scene by scene, we worked on identifying the character’s emotions, and then she interiorized them. Alice has this ability to express the emotions that she feels without appeared affected. Everything is very real and very natural. All we had to do was find the right balance. 

Cinema has not tired of exploring the complexity of family relations. Were there any works or events that inspired the storyline of Amarres? 
This film is inspired by my personal story. Fiction then was weaved into that reality. Several films accompanied me during the writing of Amarres and throughout the entire creative process. Les Poings dans les poches by Marco Bellocchio is undoubtedly the one that counted the most. 

What place does Amarres hold in your filmography? 
I’ve directed several shorts, Amarres is the first of my films to be produced. It’s also my first fiction with professional actors. My previous work was on a sort of blurred line between documentary and fiction; like Les Anges, with and about students in academic difficulty or the choreographic film about the dancer Fabienne Haustant. 

What’s your favourite short? 
I have a strong memory of Cri du homard de Nicolas Guiot. His unrelenting storyline impressed me. There was also something Hanneke-like in his directing that I particularly liked. The universe of the director Manon Coubia really speaks to me: Les Enfants partent à l’aube with its pure and tense directing style. I was also floored by the poetic power of her last film, Marée. 

What does the Festival mean to you? 
I came once as an audience member and I remember attending screenings morning till night. It is a gift that such an assembly for short films exists. It’s the only place where we can discover the work of young international filmmakers. I am very excited and flattered to be a part of it. 

Amarres is being shown as part of the National Competition F6.  

In Koha wa Tapaha, we hear the voice of the main character as she tells her story, but we don’t see her. What was your intent behind this choice?  
There are two reasons. One was a creative choice and the second out of a solution to an obstacle imposed on us. Creatively, this choice was made to make her story every Afghan’s story by overlaying her voice with the visuals of civilians. After the Soviet invasion in the late 70s, half of Afghanistan’s pre-war population was lost to death, injuries and displacement. One way or the other, directly or indirectly, everyone we see in this film has been affected by that war. Secondly, when the Taliban retook Kabul, their very first ban was on women’s participation in fiction cinema. They were barred from acting in films. For me, this meant overcoming one more obstacle in the world of filmmaking. To work around this ban, I decided we do not see her.  

How did you work with Fereshta Afshar, the voice performer?  
The actual collaboration was very different for both of us. We collaborated remotely. It was something neither of us had done in the past. Keeping segregation laws in mind, and to avoid trouble with the authorities, we never met during the making of this film. I sent her the narration script with notes for directions. She would then record the voice over and send me the files. I would listen and give her feedback. We went back and forth countless times before we both were satisfied with the final results. I had collaborated with Fereshta in my previous narrative short film Bad Omen, which also played at Clermont-Ferrand in 2021. She is by far the best acting talent in Afghanistan. For Koha wa Tapaha, I had made up my mind from the beginning that I will be working with her again in order to keep this film as authentic as possible and to keep Afghan cinema alive by collaborating with someone who was directly affected by the ban. It would have been a lot easier to cast someone outside Afghanistan but that would fail to bring the raw emotions that Fereshta delivered via her voice.  

It’s rather rare, for an occidental audience, to see images of Afghanistan that aren’t related to war. How did you choose the shots of the country you used in the film?
Afghanistan is always on my mind and in my heart. The exact reason I made this film was the fact that one night, I came to the realization that there was no active war in Afghanistan post the US withdrawal. It was the first time in my life that the armed conflict had ended back home. But, I am also aware of the history. Last time, an invading superpower “Soviet Union” was forced to withdraw; Afghanistan fell into a very bloody civil war in which Kabul, the capital was destroyed. I couldn’t help but have a mix of negative and positive thoughts about the future. These thoughts made me realize how historically significant the current phase is. I rushed to visually document Kabul’s residents, hills and mountains to preserve the current phase for future generations. I don’t know what lies ahead for Afghans and the country, but at least these visuals will mean something to someone like me in the future. Choosing the shots was easy. Kabul and pretty much the entire of Afghanistan is shaped like a poetic painting. When you stand in the middle of it, you’re surrounded by the hills and mountains. 

How would you like the audience to react to your film?
I find myself morally obligated to inform and educate the audience about Afghans, and Afghanistan through my films. I like to give the audience glimpses into the unseen and unknown Afghanistan, this is why I base my films around the events that have been taking place in Afghanistan post-1970s. Unfortunately, back home has been the battlefield for the world’s superpower forever. If you say the word Afghanistan or read the word Afghanistan, the first thought that comes to mind is most likely war, but there was and still is more to Afghanistan and its people. Our stories have been told with a narrow gaze. Filmmaking allows me to preserve our stories in an artistic form while at the same time, I am able to inform the broader audience of what Afghanistan was like before these wars or why we are in the current state. We all have our own biases shaped by the information we are exposed to. I can’t control how the audience will or will not react to my film, but I do know that they will have a new perspective and better understanding of Afghanistan after watching my film. 

What’s your favourite short?
My favourite short film is an animation called Father and Daughter by Michaël Dudok de Wit. It’s a very straight forward simple story about a girl who grows up, but within her, there is always a deep longing for her missing father. It’s a very powerful emotionally moving film.  

What does the Festival mean to you?  
Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival is an undisputed King of short film festivals. The programming, networking, opportunities and all-around environment are second to none. I look forward to being there in person soon. 

Koha wa Tapaha [Hills and Mountains] is being shown as part of the International Competition I3.  

What did you want to explore in this relationship between the two women? Who or what inspired this relationship between them?
With this film, I wanted to express the feelings that came from fever nightmares that I had as a child, in which I could feel my body going from an empty state to a full state, in a cyclical manner throughout the night. Awake, these opposing perceptions of my body have long haunted me and still question me today. To represent these two states, I wrote these two characters, the “Ecorchée” (skinned) and the “Bouffie” (puffy),  two Siamese sisters connected by a leg. The film asks the question: what would happen if I detached myself from one of these two bodies?

Why are they in this particular environment?          
Since my principal inspiration came from my youth, I decided to continue to delve into my childhood fears. So, for the sets, I had fun gathering heterogeneous elements that have in common only the anxiety that I would feel as a child when seeing them: an old suburban pavilion from the 60s, a canopy bed, an art deco mirrored wardrobe, etc. The same for many situations in the story, for example, the skinning of the rabbits is directly inspired by my grandmother who used to skin rabbits and make slippers from their fur. My dive into these childhood anxieties naturally brought out my melancholic temperament. So I constructed my film in a balance between these two states: anxiety and melancholy.

Talk to us about your animation technique. Why did you choose to tell this story through this technique?          
I needed to find a strong graphic universe to be able to rediscover these feelings from my nightmares. After several unsuccessful attempts, I had a revelation: textile material was the ideal material to express bodily sensations because the fiber of the fabric reminded me of the muscle fibers of a flayed body. By typing on the Internet the keywords “textile” and “flayed”, I discovered the flayed textile cow by the plastic artist Aline Bordereau. Her universe moved me. I contacted her and proposed a collaboration. Aline quickly understood my intentions, which echoed her own work, and she made the original puppets for the film.

Your film blends several genres and codes. How would you describe it?
Écorchée is first and foremost a fairy tale, like all the stories that I write. I am fascinated by the original texts of the great storytellers (Perrault, Grimm, Andersen), which have since been toned down in their adaptations. My fascination comes from the fact that these works mix genres (comedy, horror, gore, romance, etc.). In the line of these hybrid works, I like certain Korean filmmakers who also enjoy mixing different genres.

What would you like to explore next as a director/animator?
Écorchée has been very well received by the audience. It is a real relief for me because financing was difficult. In commissions, the project was divisive: exciting for some, too raw and personal for others, with too narrow of a reach. This feedback from the public showing that this universe could reach a wider audience reassured me to continue to express my intimate sensations and emotions. In particular, I am writing a horror anthology series project called DOLLS that takes up the visual universe and themes of Ecorchée, including the anxieties related to the body. This project is supported in development by the CNC and by the Pays de la Loire Region.

What’s your favorite short?
I like cinema in all its facets and all its genres but I was especially inspired in my writing by stop motion animation in Eastern Europe, particularly by Garri Bardin (Konflict, Adagio, Fioritures), a Russian director who has successfully used many materials (wire, objects, clay, paper) in the writing of his films.

What does the Festival mean to you?
It is simply the most important short film festival in the world. It is an incredible recognition for my work as an author-director.

Écorchée [Skinned] is being shown as part of National Competition F12.

Your film features a lead character who comes back home and reunites with her former friends. Did you have any real-life experiences which led you to write about the topic?
We wrote the script together with Tiare, who is also the protagonist of the short film and a great friend. Everything arose from a character that we had been working on for a long time for the idea of a feature film. We said to ourselves what happens if we make a short film with the same character, but this time Ana returns to the place from where she had gone without the intention of returning. We began to share our own experiences of reuniting with old friends and to talk about the distance that friendship creates after being away. We remembered our adolescence. We shared anecdotes and experiences with female friends, where the love of friendship is very visceral. We both decided to study careers related to cinema, an unusual option for our context of teenage friends. Uniting our experiences led us to the reflection that the reunion with friends after a long time generates something that somehow defines you, as a mirror to remember where you came from, and also leads you to the inevitable awareness of seeing where you are and accept the consequences of the decisions you made.

How did you choose Tiare Pino, who plays Ana, and Daniela Pino, who plays Karina?
The choice of Tiare was from the beginning, we wrote thinking that she would play her. She knew the character very well and is a deep and talented actress. We wanted the characters to have something in common, something graphic that tied them together, a physical similarity. That’s how we came to Daniela, they both have a similar skin color, and something similar in their eyes. A natural beauty.

The bond between Ana and Karina is really well depicted. What did you want to explore through their relationship? 
Human relationships are complex and ambivalent, they go from love to anger, from distance to closeness. One can feel everything at the same time. That is what we worked on with the actresses, the richness of the multiple emotions that go through when you meet again a person who was part of your life, who grew up with you, who was part of your intimacy. A person who knows things about you that you possibly want to forget. We talked a lot about how the characters felt, we worked on looking at each other again, recognizing the other despite the time. Meeting up again in a conversation, playfully with humor. Getting lost in a talk, like when they were inseparable. We worked on genuineness and clumsiness. How removing that can be an encounter. Not only do you face an old friend, but you also meet a version of yourself. In the first editing of the short film, we had a much longer conversation between Ana and Karina. So we did a delicate job of taking out text and transforming some moments. I think that what helped this precise work was that the actresses lived their scenes with a lot of truth. We had a great time doing it. Baile Entretenido was performed with talented professionals, but the most beautiful thing is that it was done with friends.

What’s your favourite short?
Wasp by Andrea Arnolds is a tremendous and beautiful film at the same time. I am deeply moved by the protagonist; she moves from despair to desire and need. I feel that it is a deep and human short film. I am very attracted to complex, ambivalent, lost, and daring characters.

What does Festival mean to you?
First of all, it was a beautiful surprise, we received a WhatsApp early morning from Rebeca our distributor, and I woke up to the news. We were all very happy. I am excited that Baile Entretenido has its premiere in Europe and especially Clermont-Ferrand, such an important festival worldwide. It also moves me to think that it was chosen and that somehow we were able to convey what we talked about for months, to convey that affection persists despite the distance. That nothing is erased from the body and that I can always carry my story inside. We are happy with the news, it also makes us feel that we can continue with other projects that we already have in the pipeline. Now together with Camila, producer of Baile Entretenido, we are excited and very grateful to live the festival experience.

Baile Entretenido [Fun Dance] is being shown as part of the International Competition I9.

Where is the story set? How familiar are you with this region and this world?
Von der Flüchtigkeit eines Geschmacks is set in a wild and very vivid garden that is certainly similar to the family garden where I grew up and which always inspires me when I come back to it now. It wasn’t easy for us to find this kind of garden in the sandy area of Brandenburg in the north of Germany, but in the end we found one gorgeous place even with apricots and peaches – what a dream.

Who inspired you to create the character of Félie?
Félie is inspired by many children I talked to or experienced and researched about in their process of grief. So are the two other female characters. The initial impulse to dive deep into the research about grief as a fundamental human emotion was my family experiencing a similar loss as told in the film. Very interesting for me is the fact that there is always individual behavior but also a group dynamic that we also tried to express in our story. The core gesture of the film is how the three characters can finally take the first step to let go. As all of them are dealing so differently with the situation, it creates sort of a dance of repulsion and attraction which the three actresses performed so well!

Why did you choose to have very little dialogue? Tell us more about your cinematic choices. How did you choose to film and present the tomatoes? 
Little dialogue really wasn’t such a conscious decision but the pictures, the sound atmosphere of the garden and the non-verbal communication of the film characters was already so strong that we really didn’t need more dialogue. It was important for us to blend the characters into the presence of the garden in which they are literally just another natural element. The dynamics of life and death are showing in every cell of this habitat. And thus the tomatoes were presented in exactly that manner: there is super tasteful fleshy tomatoes next to the rotten ones that snails are incorporating already. The humans I know in general take a bit longer to accept the fact of the circle of life, holding on to an idea of a constant joyful place. I’ve always loved the way Hieronymus Bosch imagined paradise in his painting The Garden of Earthly Delights – even though we see a clear difference between paradise and hell we can also see the very dark corners in his garden, obscure formations and even death. Cinematically there were three main leads to follow: 1. portraying the garden in all its facets, mirroring life and death as equal partners – so the dark corners, the rotting, the foulness, the decay and the life, magnificence, luxury and growth. 2. following the process of letting go as the characters in the story do. 3. displaying the loss of taste of the mother by contrasting it as immersive as possible with the tastefulness and volume of the garden and its fruits.

What sort of stories do you like to tell as a filmmaker?
I love to explore the fractions between polarizing concepts, like paradise and hell, and the diversity and beauty that emerge when we accept their simultaneity.

What are your upcoming projects?
In November I was able to visit Kyiv as DocuDays UA made it possible for our documentary about a Ukrainian activist to have our world premiere at their festival. I could meet many of my truly amazing and inspiring friends who stayed in the country and it raised my interest in the fundamental and complex emotion of hate – now I’m developing a documentary-fiction hybrid on that topic. Secondly, I’m on a long-term project on the European idea which includes me traveling European places with my self-built documentary van.

What’s your favourite short?
There are so many great short films I have experienced that I cannot say what my favourite one could be. I generally love it when short films take the format to experiment with our art. Recently I saw one amazing film called Remember the Smell of Mariupol by Zoya Laktionova – it was a very honest, intimate artistic insight into a process the artist went through after the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine. A short film for me is all about fragments and moments that can explode into a whole world in our imagination.

What does the Festival mean to you?
It’s an honor and such a big compliment for our graduation project to celebrate our world premiere in Clermont Ferrand! I’m looking forward to a deep dive into the fantastic program of short films from all over the world and meeting all the great people promising to be there… And I love France and looking forward to practice my French again.

Von der Flüchtigkeit eines Geschmacks [A Transient Taste] is being shown as part of International Competition I10.

Could you explain what the acronym PLSTC represents?  
PLSTC is an invented acronym that simply means “plastic.” This word has several advantages: it is succinct, legible, and phonetically understandable in most languages. Also, with its “visually missing” letters, it also perhaps illustrates the idea that plastic does not totally disintegrate but rather, remains, in spite of everything, plastic.  

Which techniques did you use to create these images?  
No animals were harmed during filming, because there was no filming. PLSTC is 99% a mixed-media digital fiction. It is the result of an experimental process involving a symbiosis between human sensitivity and digital tools, certain of which use artificial intelligence (AI) applied to artistic forms. First, the images were created with the help of Midjourney, a text2image AI software that uses prompts to generate unique still images. I had to create a collection of several thousand images representing approximately 40 animal and plant species in order to select the 400 most precise, touching, and visually coherent ones for the film. Once these images were manually edited in 2D using Photoshop, I transformed them into 3D scenes with a depth maps generator tool which also relies on AI. Then, I again manually touched up the individual shots to ensure their visual credibility once in movement. After enlarging each shot to 4K, with the help of another specialized AI software designed for this purpose, I was able to begin editing and compositing the film with traditional postproduction softwares such Premiere and After Effects.  
What about the remaining 1% that is not digital?  The particles and microbubbles are, for their part, real.

How long did you work beforehand to produce the 1 minute and 15 seconds of images for the film? Did you encounter any roadblocks along the way?
Indeed, the film is relatively short, but intense, with its almost 400 visual effects shots. Aside from a few glitches of certain newer AI apps, everything went according to plan and rather quickly compared to say, a classic CGI production that would have included as many animated elements. The entire PLSTC project took me 3 months. I made the film itself in 2 months: from the concept to the color calibration to the creation of the visual images, transforming them to 3D, followed by the editing and finally the VFX compositing. After that, I spent a week on sound design with Magnus Monfeldt and then Nick Smith who crafted a 5.1 surround mix. And finally, it took three more weeks to put everything related to the film’s launch in place—the film description, PR, translations, website, teasers, posters, key visuals and other communication material in specific formats to promote the film on social media, lists of festivals, etc.) 

How did you choose the piece of music that accompanies the film?  
Very simply, very quickly, and very early on in the process, by carrying out specific searches on music library platforms. I already had a precise idea of what I wanted as far as rhythm, length, genre and instrumentals went. I quickly came across the piece of music that corresponded with what I was looking for and that immediately struck me.  

How interested are you in the question of raising awareness about protecting the environment? Do you have other projects on the same topic?
The issues regarding the environment are more and more concerning to me. But I am not a sailor, nor a scientist, nor am I a lawyer at the European Commission. My weapons are my sensitivity, my creativity and my artistic skill. If my messages are able to reach people capable of making changes in real life, I feel that I’ve fulfilled my role: that of communicating through art. Each person is free to get involved in their own way. As far as I am concerned, in addition to having spent a trimester self-producing this film, I will give 20% of any profits earned by PLSTC to NGOs on the field. My next projects also deal with universal causes and I’m exploring new AI programs to perhaps help me make them. 

What’s your favourite short?  
There are many of course, but I’ll cite the first and the last that had an impact on me: La Jetée by Chris Marker and A Short Story by Bi Gan. But I hope to discover many others during this edition of the Clermont-Ferrand festival!  

What does the Festival mean to you?  
I learned about the festival relatively late, only about ten years ago, when one of my first animated films, Miss Daisy Cutter, was officially selected for the festival. I was struck by the how large the event was, here in the middle of France, as well as by the enthusiasm and the passion of the audience and the organizers. The Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival is for me a wonderful experience and an example—like Cannes or Annecy for animated films—of the best out there to nourish the passion and satisfy the curiosity for cinema all across France.  

PLSTC is being shown as part of the Lab Competition L5.  

How did you happen to think of making a film about truck drivers?
I wrote the script with Thimothée Meyrieux-Drevet who shared his research on drivers and the evolution of their working conditions. I was immediately interested by the topic. So then we had to figure out how to talk about it and come up with a cinematic idea. For that, I was primarily inspired by the world of highways and industrial areas. They’re paradoxical places that are neither natural areas nor inhabited ones, where machines reign supreme. Trucks are almost like the animals of a mechanical biotope for the area. And drivers are solitary humans who pass each other, like sailors on the sea. That’s what I found fascinating about their job: over the course of their life, they drive more than they walk.

How did you meet Christophe Kourotchkine? 
Choosing Christophe was both simple and instinctive. We didn’t cast for the role. The production team organized a meeting with him to go over the script. The moment I saw how he moved, talked, watched, I had no doubts about him for the part.

Were you more interested by the feeling of insignificance or by the question of breaking off relations with one’s family?
Aren’t those two issues linked? Doesn’t the feeling of insignificance depend on the relationship we have with others and with our environment? More than the question of breaking off, I think it’s the question of our “link” to the world and to others that spurred me.

Were you particularly interested in the subject of “undocumented” immigrants? Do you see yourself making other films on the topic?
I don’t know where that comes from, but it’s something that comes up often when I write. For example in my earlier film, Z.A.R (2021), a science-fiction film that talks about climatic migrations. Honestly, it’s unconscious on my part. I’m not particularly active politically, but I am ashamed. I’m ashamed of knowing and of adapting so easily to the situation sometimes, and to a certain degree, as a European of a certain social class, of taking advantage of the situation. So, since I’m ashamed, I display my shame wherever I find myself, which in this case means a heated apartment in a French city where you can order food that’s often cooked and/or delivered by migrant workers (who are sometimes undocumented), in precarious situations, who’ve lived through things that my mind and body could perhaps not even imagine.   

What’s your favourite short?
With no hesitation, I have to say William Laboury’s Hotaru… It’s a science-fiction film that’s edited together using mainly archival images. For me, it’s both a narrative and formal wonder. It’s one of my favorite films, regardless of format. I’ve seen it at least ten times. I’ve never met the director, however, so I haven’t told him yet. If that happened, I’d probably buy him a pint of beer out of friendship. I was also very impressed with Amour(s) by Mathilde Chavanne, which I saw at Clermont-Ferrand in 2020. But I was able to tell her. And I did buy her a pint.

What does the Festival mean to you?
I’ve heard about the Festival since I was fourteen. Later on, I went often as an audience member, but this is the first time that I’ll be presenting my film in competition. So obviously, it’s a bit symbolic for me. It’s also a Festival where you can see a lot of films, very different ones from all over the world, and then go and argue with like-minded film-buffs in a bar about your favorite ones and least favorite ones. Which, along with eating truffade, is one of my favorite activities in Clermont-Ferrand. That way of appreciating films is not necessarily universal, but for me, the critical disagreement the Festival encourages is what makes up the entire vitality of cinema. I sincerely hope people will viscerally loathe my film and passionately argue with other people who might have loved it.

Bitume [Asphalt] is being shown as part of the National Competition F1.