SÉLECTION OFFICIELLE 2015 MICHAEL GENTILE presents a THE FILM FRANCE 2 CINEMA MARS FILMS WILD BUNCH TEMPÊTE SOUS UN CRÂNE PRODUCTION coproduction a film by JULIE DELPY written by JULIE DELPY and eUGÉnie GRANDVAL starring DANY BOON JULIE DELPY VINCENT LACOSTE and KARIN VIARD Runtime: 97 min INTERNATIONAL PR VENICE DAYS MAGALI MONTET [email protected] + 336 71 63 36 16 INTERNATIONAL SALES FLORENCE DEBARBAT WILD BUNCH [email protected] + 336 75 28 99 95 V I N C E N T M A R AVA L & N O E M I E D E V I D E [email protected] INTERNATIONAL PR TIFF TOUCHWOOD PR CAROLE BARATON & OLIVIER BARBIER US SALES CAA [email protected] ANDREA GRAU TRISTEN TUCKFIELD [email protected] EMILIE SERRES [email protected] +1 416 347 6749 [email protected] NICK OGIONY KARA MACLEAN SILVIA SIMONUTTI [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] +1 424 288 2000 +1 310 254 4934 SYNOPSIS On holiday in the south of France, chic Parisian sophisticate Violette meets life-loving IT geek Jean-René. Against all odds, there’s a real chemistry between them and at the end of the summer, Jean René wastes no time in joining his beloved in Paris. But their different social backgrounds and her 19 years old son won’t make things easy... After TWO DAYS IN PARIS, TWO DAYS IN NEW YORK and SKYLAB, Julie Delpy returns with a sharp romantic comedy, alongside Dany Boon, the irresistible creator of WELCOME TO THE STICKS. JULIE DELPY - VIOLETTE COSCREENWRITER AND DIRECTOR How did you come up with the film’s concept? One day we were joking with my coscreenwriter Eugénie Up to now your films had focused primarily on family. In Grandval about the relationships that my six year-old son – my LOLO, Violette is alone with her son. «little emperor» – and I would have in fifteen years. We had fun Unlike my previous films, Violette’s parents are non-existent. toying with this notion and we also enjoyed the idea of a rather I wanted the audience to feel she was a bit uprooted, without unusual couple – he’s a somewhat simple, provincial guy and any family background. All she has is her son and her friend. she comes from the fashion world – whose relationship could It’s probably because I’ve come to the other side – I became a be upset by the son’s presence. It was a simple storyline with mother. funny characters, situations and dialogue. Speaking of children-parents relationships, Karin Viard’s We’ve been used to «boomerang generation» characters in character is poles apart from your character – she can’t stand films. LOLO is one of a kind… her daughter. Without giving too much away, you could say he’s devilishly She hates her guts. She hates the bullying between them, which manipulative. I’ve always enjoyed portraying neurotic doesn’t mean their relationship doesn’t exist. I really meant for characters. I also enjoy filming psychotic characters. I know Karin’s character – who isn’t on screen all the time – to actually quite a lot of people like this. I don’t find them funny at all in real exist. Overall I like to flesh out characters in my films. This used life but in movies there’s something about them that makes me to be typical of French cinema and it got lost along the way – laugh out loud. and I enjoy reviving it. Violette, the mother you play, is a forty-something woman In the film, Karin Viard and you speak about sex in incredibly who has built an outstanding career for herself but is at a blunt words. This refreshing crudeness is quite rare in French standstill in her love life. movies. It was important to feel her weaknesses and her vulnerability. At It comes from my parents’ upbringing (Albert Delpy and the beginning, her best friend, Karin Viard’s character, tells her, Marie Pillet). I grew up on satirical magazines like Charlie «You’re so good at your job and such a louse at your personal Hebdo and Hara Kiri. When I was six, I read Reiser’s comic relationships». That’s something true I’ve been noticing in Gros Dégueulasse. It was quite raunchy and trashy but it was people around me – being good at what you do for a living and also clever and funny and never altogether vulgar. I also enjoy living in a fancy apartment doesn’t mean you’re successful in pushing the envelope and being bold without being vulgar. your private life. Violette is definitely missing something – she’s It’s my writing style. We live at a time when we’re more and spent her life working and taking care of her son. Even though more bound by codes of language and political correctness. you understand that he’s always given her a hard time, she hasn’t It doesn’t make people better at all – fear rules and fascism is done much to make things better. She’s still the doting mother, back in fashion. buttering his bread and cooking soft-boiled eggs for him for breakfast. As a reference to Freud, the two eggs she serves in a double egg-cup are reminiscent of a pair of breasts. As Violette throws herself at Jean-René during an offbeat kind of caricature – it’s a background like any other – I had fun party in the Basque Country, she unwittingly falls in love with showing the fashion world. I’m a bit acquainted with it because him. There’s something very generational about the love I have designer friends, including Alexandre de Betak and story building between those two forty-something year-olds. Vanessa Seward, that actually helped me with the writing. It was I found it interesting to show that love isn’t always to be found fun to show the offbeat dimension of fashion, like the very posh where you expect it to be – a lot of people look for someone auction sale held in the subway. like them. Speaking of generation, I wanted to show that people falling in love at that age have somehow grown wiser. Once You’re also critical of Jean-René’s provincial background. you reach forty, if you feel good about yourself and you’re I love the scene where he sees a doctor that tells him that his lucky enough to meet a beautiful soul, you don’t sleep around. itching comes from the fact that he’s from the countryside. For You’re less passionate and fiery – and more down-to-earth. It’s a Parisian, Biarritz is the countryside! Parisians sometimes have healthier. the craziest ideas about provincials! Anyway everyone is over the top in the film. Violette and Lolo of course, and everybody Violette works as an art director for fashion shows and Jean- around them. Jean-René is so kind and good-hearted that he René is an unassuming computer engineer living in the never sees any harm in anyone. But the fact is he’s surrounded province. As in TWO DAYS IN PARIS you have a very sharp by mean-spirited people. It makes him a funny character but in take on those backgrounds. It’s as if the fact that you’ve lived the end you root for him. in L.A. for so long has made you more receptive to things we don’t pay attention to anymore. He never comes off as a fool, which was quite challenging. The fact that I live far away from France and that I come back He’s a naive man but he’s no fool. He’s in love with Violette and here regularly probably helps me notice different things – I wishes her son liked him. There’s something pure and kind have more hindsight. Although I wanted to keep away from any about his naiveté that has nothing to do with foolishness. He’s also a bit gullible as he takes whatever he’s told at face value. Did you immediately have Vincent Lacoste in mind for the It’s challenging to take on someone as wicked as Lolo when role? you have that character. I’m very naive myself and I had to face I wrote it for him. We worked together on THE SKYLAB five that position when I was very young and first set foot in the film years ago. Vincent was only seventeen then and I was blown industry. Naturally I met wonderful people but I also had to deal away by his talent, his dedication and his totally laid-back with horrible people. Actresses who claimed they cared for me attitude. I particularly remember one scene where he was would get their hands on scripts behind my back. supposed to tell the kids a story under the tent and scare them in the process. He did ten takes in a row without ever getting Lolo is as horrible to Jean-René as to his mother. his dialogue wrong and messing up any take. I like to work with He literally wants to eat her and as he projects what he is on men people like him – he’s dedicated and respectful of the teamwork. attracted to her, he tells her Jean-René is a psycho that wants to eat her alive – Jean-René becomes the big bad wolf about Tell us about Dany Boon. to eat his mom. Although he pretends to be a cool artist full of From the outset I had him in mind for Jean-René.