Daily Archives

19 June 2015

The world’s most beautiful music video is Jacques Brel singing "Ne me quitte pas." No set or visual effects can create as much emotion as Brel’s face. That’s why my most beautiful landscapes are the faces of Fane, Mo and Lilas. A simple story with a lot at stake: love, children and dignity in the […]

"There’s one question that a director would like never to have to answer: why this film?" Sooner or later, however – and this seems truly inevitable – the moment occurs and then you struggle to find an answer. You usually attempt to relate the deeper meaning of the film to a presumed and vague universality […]

NIU PENG, the film’s title, is the pronunciation of two Chinese ideograms that literally mean "ox yard". During the Cultural Revolution this expression designated a re-education centre since, at the time, the enemies of the people were deemed to be "spirits with the head of oxen". For a Chinese person, these are the most evil […]

When you started writing La guerre des Bush, did you think that there could be a possible film or TV adaptation ? Quite frankly, no. I thought that the subject – the ambiguities and the secrets of the Bush family – was too sensitive and touchy and I couldn’t imagine a producer running the risk […]

This short story by Thomas Mann is highly topical on a political and literary level. Despite the period colours, costumes and sets, it is a modern story that speaks of seduction, love, hatred, jealousy, murder and power: themes as old as the world and as old as life itself ! My own questions concerning the […]

Your film is largely based on an investigation carried out by Éric Laurent. How do you go from a book to a documentary ? I read Éric Laurent’s first book, La Guerre des Bush, while I was making my previous film on the CIA [CIA, guerres secrètes, broadcast on Arte]. I had just finished shooting […]

"For the audience, the main quality of Emilio Maillé’s documentary resides in the comparison of the idealized memory of that evening with its reality. The surprises begin with the players’ arrival at the stadium… But the best part of the film is contained in the memories of the players and their coach, Michel Hidalgo, reunited […]

Interview with Jean-Loup HUBERT About the characters : Le Grand Chemin is the story of a child, Louis, whom his pregnant mother entrusts for a few weeks to a couple of villagers: Marcelle and Pelo. We learn very little about this boy’s past. We simply guess that his parents are going through a sticky patch. […]

I met Catherine Breillat while she was casting the film. In the end, there were three of us left and Catherine had us read the screenplay in its entirety. Even if I found a few elements of myself in it, the character wasn’t really me. Anaïs is a little girl who doesn’t really want to […]