flachfilm

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

"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 […]

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 […]

"I wanted to tell the remarkable story of a man exiled by the King to a West African trading post, from just before the French Revolution to the birth of the Republic and the death of Louis XVI.. I wished to make it a love story shattered by historical events, an adventure movie in the […]

You’re best known as a producer of fiction films What made you want to produce a documentary and to choose such a burningly topical subject ? I think that reality always surpasses fiction. I was struck by the huge enterprise of manipulation that the Bush administration has undertaken. In this particular case, the turning point […]

Ce qui était génial, c’était l’enthousiasme de Gérard Krawczyk ! Je me souviens de notre première rencontre : c’était au festival du film français de Yokohama. Il est venu vers moi et m’a parlé avec une telle joie de son envie de travailler avec moi… C’est flatteur, tout de même ! Et puis, très humblement, […]

Je n’ai eu aucun mal à accepter ce rôle : un beau personnage, dans une belle histoire, un peu surréaliste. Le chauffeur routier est un aventurier solitaire. Il est capable de rester quarante-huit heures dans sa cabine, seul, sans parler… Ça me va bien ! La vie de ces gens-là me fait rêver. Il vit […]