1. Your films often explore themes of fantasy and the human psyche. How do your experiences and background shape your approach to crafting narratives that delve into the depths of human emotions and experiences?

 

I guess it goes back to my teenage years, when my imagination was forged by visions of fantastic films. At that time, there was the everyday world in which I played a role, in middle school and high school, without being able to be completely myself, and the world of these films through which I was searching for myself, experiencing a catharsis. Since then, I've continued to enjoy observing the world with this shift, this fantastic side-step, when I write my films.

 

2. The premise of your film involves a character's delusion about a loved one's continued existence. What inspired you to delve into the psychological aspects of grief and denial?

 

For "A l'abri" in particular, I was struck by the rise in clinical psychiatric cases during the Covid and lockdown periods. The film was written at the start of the second lockdown in France, when people were constantly imagining and talking about "what might happen". I think this context inspired me to tell the story of this man in denial, who refuses to accept that the world will end up being better off than he is, somehow. He prefers to withdraw into his personal world of fiction, which ties in with what I was saying about my adolescence and my original desire for cinema.

 

3. The setting in your film takes on a character-like presence, impacting the characters' emotions. How do you approach creating an environment that's deeply intertwined with the narrative?

 

We liked creating this sense of presence. For me, the film remains open to Alain's share of madness; after all, the house is truly haunted in my opinion. To create this eerie environment, cinematographer Alexandre Vigier and I played with moments of autonomous point-of-view, by which I mean the camera suddenly moving away from the situation, as if someone unseen were watching. Then, this point-of-view starts to move, approaching the character in tracking shot, like a floating presence. The sound work also helped to suggest this presence, which is everywhere in the manor, blending in with the noises of the house. The real mansion we shot in was generous with weird noises, so our sound engineer Fabien Beillevaire had a great time recording ominous noises that are in the film! There's also the presence of the outside world, the apocalyptic situation with a new virus that Alain believes in: here too, a lot of the sound work is involved, from the children's footsteps to their laughter in the manor park.

 

4. "Nuit Bleue" garnered acclaim at various festivals, with recognition of its spiritual and philosophical depth. How do you infuse these profound themes into your work?

 

Profound, wow, you honor me! For "Nuit Bleue", I wanted to experiment with something in the style of Sartre's "Huis Clos", with some inspiration from Resnais too, whom I adore. So it was a film in which the characters could give a lot of themselves verbally, in a kind of airlock, in a strange elsewhere, which is both the world and not the world. In fact, it was an empty Paris at night, with no one but them, and an abandoned store. In a way, it's as if they woke up from a coma during the covid lockdown, but we shot it long before that! In this film, some of the themes are conveyed through language and dialogue, but they're more questions than answers. Then, a possible answer to their questions is given visually, without a word, in the final minutes, when one of the two vanishes into thin air and the other is left alone, seeming to catch a glimpse of an afterlife. It was a rather cerebral attempt, and now I'm working on film projects where the themes are less "given", involving more action, particularly horror or drama.

5. Your collaboration on "L'empire des lumières" explored UFO enthusiasts. How do you find the balance between skepticism and open-mindedness when presenting such intriguing topics?

 

"L'empire des lumières" was a wonderful adventure. For my co-director Mathieu Roger, who is also a cinematographer, and for myself, the whole project consisted in showing people who are passionate about a subject, who give up their time for a subject that obsesses them, even if it means appearing quirky to others. So for the UFO subject in particular, I went into it trying to adopt their point of view, to believe in it with them for the duration of the shoot, but without making a film that defended any theory on the subject. I remained agnostic, as I am in life on all esoteric subjects. And it's a film that opens you up a little to that, to being agnostic, opening yourself up to doubt, becoming curious about other possibilities, but without falling into fervent belief. The film got a fair amount of exposure for my very first produced film, thanks to its broadcast on France 3, so I was able to get a lot of comments from viewers, and I was happy to see that we'd succeeded in conveying this standpoint. People were saying: "I don't believe in UFOs at all, but through the film I understood these people who do". Of course, I'm aware that believing sometimes leads to more dangerous forms of fanaticism, whereas this film showed a gentle madness. I have other projects on the more sectarian side of beliefs. I have other projects on the more sectarian side of beliefs. The "double-edged" side of belief fascinates me: how believing in something, having the desire to dream of something else, refusing a purely materialistic reality, can make some people better, more open, like the slightly poetic characters I filmed in "L'empire des lumières"... or can lead to the worst, as we see more and more in our current society.

 

6. Your filmography spans documentaries and short films, showcasing your versatility in storytelling. How do you adapt your creative approach between these distinct formats?

 

Maybe making a documentary was a one-shot deal. We'll have to see. But "L'empire des lumières" was basically born out of a desire to delve into the fantastic and esoteric. It was a kind of groundwork for my fiction writing. Then, with the fascinating and astonishing encounters we had with the film's protagonists, the documentary took shape and became a real film. It was very improvised, we started out as a self-produced project, almost "out of curiosity". And it's the same with short films, I learn something from each short that helps me prepare a feature film, which I hope will soon come to life.

 

7. In "A l'abri," the concept of a "safe place" is explored. How do you perceive the significance of physical and emotional havens in our lives, and how does this concept influence your storytelling?

 

I think that in every film I want to tell the story of a character who's afraid of the world, whether it's a situation he's caught up in, a lie he finds himself in about the real world... And it's true that in what I write, there's always a haven, physical or emotional indeed. I think it's my way of portraying the anxieties of my characters, by contrasting them with the softness of the havens in which they take refuge.

 

8. Your involvement in co-writing a series points to your interest in long-form storytelling. What unique challenges and rewards does this format offer compared to standalone films?

 

Yes, I really like the series format. The series I'm co-writing with Sofia Barandiaran is the very first long-form project I've written. In fact, the series project was born at the same time as the documentary, which is a choral film. It took me longer to find the right stories for my short films, but I had to make short films to prove myself! I think the format imposes itself on a story; it's the story that decides for us whether it's a short film, a feature film or a series.

 

9. Your work has received international recognition. How does cultural diversity play a role in shaping your narratives and establishing connections with a global audience?

 

You flatter me once again! "Nuit Bleue" has done well at festivals in many different countries, and "A l'abri" is starting to do well too, thanks in part to your festival, which I'm delighted to see recognizes the work of the whole team behind the film. These are two economical short films, "Nuit Bleue" as a self-production, and "A l'abri" which was produced as a student association at the end of my studies at La Femis. So to be able to take the film to other countries, to get reactions from viewers, is gratifying. At the moment, I've been able to go to Italy and the UK to take part in screenings of my short films, and it's refreshing of course to discover how the film is received elsewhere than in France.

 

10. The protagonist in your film, Alain, grapples with a distorted reality. How did you approach visually capturing his perspective and conveying the complexity of his internal struggles?

 

As for the question of the character's perspective, I love playing with points-of-view and moments of subjectivity. On this film, there was something interesting about the black sanitary mask. It brought out his eyes, throughout the beginning of the film and then the last part, in other words, Alain's moments of anguish in the face of reality. It created a lot of interesting and very different things in the rushes, when you only have your character's eyes to imagine his emotion. It "charges" the eyes even more. And Pierre Léon has a hell of an expression in his eyes. As for his inner struggle, it's all down to working on the script with my scriptwriting colleague Illan Reille, a classmate at La Femis, who helped me enormously on this short film. How to find the right way to convey the character's doubts, his changing beliefs... And then, on the set, with Pierre Léon who plays Alain of course, things just kept coming together. A very beautiful moment, sometimes moving, I must say. And then during editing, we continued to work on the character's interiority. My editor Raphaël Goldzsal worked really hard to try out different ways of making what was going through the character understandable. The scene in the village, when he sees the people without their sanitary masks, for example, kept changing right to the end.

 

11. "Nuit Bleue" delves into the interplay between dreams and reality. What fascinates you about exploring the boundaries between the subconscious and the tangible world?

 

I partially answered that earlier, but on the question of the boundary between the tangible world and the subconscious, I think I also like it when cinema takes us to strange places, but with one foot in the real world at the same time, a bit like Alice in Wonderland. In other words, we go to the cinema to immerse ourselves in the dark and "hallucinate" another life, to contemplate the world differently. And sometimes it's even a vital need for the spectator to immerse himself in this other vision of the world. And I like it when the character is a bit of a double of the viewer, when the character also finds himself lost in another world, like the spectator, crossing a boundary from one perception to another. I like cinema that talks about point-of-view, illusion and disillusionment, the cinema of magicians.

 

12. Collaboration appears to be a significant aspect of your filmmaking journey. How do you navigate maintaining your creative vision while incorporating valuable input from other team members?

 

Yes, it's part of the pleasure of making films, to bring colleagues into a world of their own, of course! It's true that I co-directed my documentary "L'empire des lumières" with Mathieu Roger. The relationship with the documentary format made that natural, and it's the same for the series format, where I also share the creative side with Sofia Barandiaran. Besides that, I'm a co-writer for directors, which is a very enriching process, and it's great to immerse oneself in other people's worlds for a change! Even though I tend to work with people whose subject is the fantastic, the bizarre.

 

As for your other question, about navigating between creative vision and team work, I don't have an absolute answer, especially as I'm just starting out! But little by little, I'm finding that one method I like is to alternate between a more "meticulous" phase and one where there's freedom. Start by working alone in a very manic way, then invite a colleague to come and criticize the way things are done, propose solutions, etc. I have the impression that this is how it works at every stage in the creation of a film. When we were editing "A l'abri", we showed the film to a huge number of test viewers, friends whom I'd like to thank again for their help. It enriched the film considerably. Even if, at a certain point, it meant losing yourself in all the suggestions. But after that came a more "meticulous" phase again, where I made the final choices by going back to my original obsessions. In my opinion, this resulted in something more accomplished than if I'd simply stuck to my original idea all along. During the testing phase of other versions, many wonderful ideas emerged that we were able to keep.