Adapted from a Barbey d’Aurevilly novel, Une vieille maîtresse takes place in 1835. It is a story of passion, love, betrayal, bodies mingling and killing each other; a story of fire, blood and flesh… Yorgos Arvanitis, AFC, speaks of his collaboration with Catherine Breillat.
Raphaël Nadjari and Laurent Brunet worked together for the first time in 1998. It was their first experience, respectively as a director and a photographer. The Shade was selected for the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival. Tehilim (Psalms) marks the fifth collaboration of a duo who never parted since and now ends up on the Croisette. Entirely shot in Jerusalem and in hebrew, Tehilim tells of the mysterious disappearance of a father that leaves the family dumbfounded.
Two years ago, as I was grading Paradise Now, Israeli coproducer Amir Harel approached me. He wanted us to meet in Cannes to talk about Meduzot (Jellyfish). He was looking for a foreign cinematographer to film the city of Tel-Aviv with what he called a “different” view. The script immediately charmed me with its whimsy tone.
A story about boxes: boxes to put away our memories, boxes to transport them, boxes that sit in the middle of the living-room, waiting to be eventually unpacked. All these memory boxes were being staged by Jane Birkin. Loads of actors accompanied her on this journey, into the past, into the present. A single location – a family house in Brittany – and Jane as herself, in her own house. François Catonné, AFC, was among those who embarked on this ever so personal and timeless journey with her.
L’Avocat de la terreur was shot discontinuously over several months. With the ongoing investigation, informations would keep coming in, which made for incredibly suspenseful meetings and constantly provoked new encounters. Two lengthy interviews were conducted with Jacques Vergès at a few months interval, but the high point of the shooting was the trip to Algiers.