A Film by Claire Denis PRESS SCREENING THURSDAY 18Th May – 8:45 AM – THEATRE CROISETTE Followed by a Q&A
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BRIGHT SUNSHINE IN A FILM BY CLAIRE DENIS PRESS SCREENING THURSDAY 18th May – 8:45 AM – THEATRE CROISETTE Followed by a Q&A OFFICIAL SCREENINGS THURSDAY 18th May – 7:30 PM – THEATRE CROISETTE Preceded by an introduction. FRIDAY 19th MAY – 2:00 PM – LE RAIMU FRIDAY 19th MAY – 3:00 PM - THEATRE CROISETTE FRIDAY 19th MAY – 6:30 PM - STUDIO 13 SATURDAY 20th MAY – 8:30 PM – OLYMPIA 2 Curiosa Films presents BRIGHT SUNSHINE IN (Un beau soleil inTerieUr) A FILM BY CLAIRE DENIS WRITTEN BY CLAIRE DENIS & Christine ANGot WITH JULIETTE BINOCHE, XAVIER BeauVOIS, PHILIPPE Katerine, Josiane Balasko, Nicolas DUVauchelle, Valeria BRUNI-TEDESCHI, GÉRARD Depardieu 2017 / France / 1h34 Download Photos and Press Kit: http://www.rv-press.com/ INTERNATIONAL PRESS RENDEZ VOUS Viviana Andriani, Aurélie Dard 2 rue Turgot 75009 Paris WORLD SALES Ph.: +33 1 42 66 36 35 FILMS DISTRIBUTION 5 rue Nicolas Flamel, Paris 75004 IN CANNES: Ph: +33 1 53 10 33 99 +33 6 80 16 81 39, [email protected], www.FilmsDistribution.com + 33 6 77 04 52 20, [email protected] SYNOPSIS Isabelle, Parisian artist, divorced mother, is looking for love, true love at last. INTERVIEW WITH I was in one of those lull periods between two chains that come with working in cinema, all projects: my previous film, which was par- the difficulties in pulling a film together, just ticularly tough, and the next one, a foreign break apart. CLAIRE DENIS co-production, which is naturally more dif- ficult to put together. So, I was in a suspend- Christine has that effect on me: she revives ed state of expectation. Then, exactly at the my belief that working is worth the while. I right moment, Olivier Delbosc presented me believe in work, of course, but sometimes with a proposal: he had a project he wished it is difficult to consider your own projects to produce and he wanted me to be part of like real work - particularly in cinema, where it. He called it “an omnibus film,” as it would there is such a dependence on others that be an adaptation of Roland Barthes’ book A sitting alone in your kitchen in the early Lover’s Discourse: Fragments, with several hours of the morning figuring out how to different directors. When he contacted me, tackle your work isn’t bearable for very long. I was wrapping up a one-year workshop at From that standpoint, I think that writers are the Fresnoy National Studio with student more efficient than filmmakers. artists. The Fresnoy experience did me a world of The summer before, in Avignon, I had at- good because it rekindled my desire for tended the reading of a Chrstine Angot text work. In short, Christine and this little film by the actors Norah Krief and Alex Descas. with the Fresnoy workshop put me back on Afterwards, I had told Christine “I have the track, and redefined my connection with funny impression that I could film this dia- work. logue right now, exactly as it was spoken, without any preparation or scenery, just a Christine and I wanted to extend this hap- camera and a sound man. It’s solid in my py adventure. So I spoke to Olivier Delbosc mind.” And she’d answered: “But that won’t about Christine, and I spoke to Christine work!” And I told her, “Yes it will, you’ll see.” about Olivier’s project. But we no longer So I decided to make this part of the work- wanted to adapt Barthes’ book, we now shop at Fresnoy, and the project was quick- wanted to write our own screenplay: Our ly put together. I kept the two actors from lovers’ fragments. In the end, this allowed us Avignon; Agnès Godard was the director to make the theme completely our own. For of photography and all of the workshop’s the rest, we entirely set Barthes aside and participants helped out. In three days of we dismissed the idea of making an adapta- shooting, plus one week of editing, we made tion. There isn’t a single fragment of Barthes’ – only using what we had on hand in Fres- texts in our dialogue. There was, however, noy – a 45 minute film that’s calledHere Is this one word engraved in our minds: “Ag- the Concatenation, the story of a couple’s ony,” but we used it to shed some light on break-up. This experience was very liberat- our own lives, and we simply kept the free ing for me, something akin to the having the structure, which turned into a film made of fragments. Besides, Christine and I worked Christine and I didn’t know each other very had in mind Crepax characters: dark-haired in fragments, or “moments,” and that was well. We became close, clinging to each oth- women with short hair and a strong sexual what suited us best. er’s lives. We met each other in the middle aura. A woman without taboos, neither nym- of life’s journey and bonded profoundly dur- pho nor hooker. I told Christine Angot that in Barthes’ Frag- ing the course of the story. We tried to face ments, there was a word I loved: “Agony” together, and with sincerity, our failures in Isabelle also knows that she if she wants to and we made it our keyword, the point from love, our darkest clouds – and we laughed find true love, she’s going to end up in tears which we started working. Agony in my mind about them. And since it made us laugh, it from time to time. I’m fed up with film char- evokes a very chic and slightly smug way of could make others laugh as well. When writ- acters who are invariably heroic; one can’t saying that one is overwhelmed by roman- ing in duo with someone, there is a natural always be that way and Isabelle no longer tic woes: the unquenchable expectation, and healthy distance that sets in that adds endeavors to be that way. the thwarted ideal. You can begin to “own” irony and levity. Isabelle is a woman who sees the widening this word the moment you’ve become more disparity between what she is looking for pragmatic about your love affairs, when you This bond we formed, like two accomplices, in men, and what she can find. This gap is allow yourself be ironic about your past his- can be seen in the fishmonger’s scene where only growing wider over the course of her tory. And the word “Agony” immediately put we make Philippe Katherine, a client in the different encounters, her “fragments.” But Christine and me under a sort of spell, trans- shop, use the silly French word “poiscaille,” she’s not a feminine version of Don Juan: a porting us into a sort of imaginary world. which is a bit like saying “fishies” in Eng- depressive seductress, prey to an addiction In a way, our own “amorous throes” fed the lish. Christine and I were perfectly in tune: that is slowing killing her. She’s more of a writing process. a grown man using this term is simply un- Casanova and a hedonist, but because she’s palatable! And Christine is the kind of writer a woman, it had better remain hidden. So we readily drew from our own experience. who instantly grasps that the word “fishies” The woman, from the moment she appears would make a great scene. It’s this type of Choosing the men she associates with and in the screenplay, is at first a version of us, playful thinking that brought us together in meets was crucial. Above all, I didn’t want Christine Angot and myself: Fragments of the working process. This playful meeting Juliette to go through a string of actors as our lives, chunks of our stories. Then we re- of the minds resulted in this fortuitous film, though she speared them successively. I alized it had to be Juliette. Juliette Binoche which became for me an unexpected expe- placed in her path a number of filmmakers stood out to us as the ideal vessel for the rience – in every way possible, including the such as Xavier Beauvois and Bruno Podaly- role of Isabelle. The screenplay called for a sheer joy I felt during the whole process. dès, and people with whom I have a com- creamy, voluptuous and desirable feminine mon history, like Alex Descas and Laurent body: A woman whose face and body are I had a very precise mental image of Isa- Grévill. This weaves in fragments of my own beautiful, and whose demeanor in no way belle’s character. I envisioned a very feminine history, and a certain way of viewing men. conveys defeat. Someone for whom in love brown-haired lady, with thigh-high boots, Since I was a teenager, the strongest male battles, victory is still possible, without how- because it’s an expression of her desire. We role models for me, the most appealing, ever, ever assuming that the outcome is cer- see her thighs between her mini-skirt and where often filmmakers. tain. the top of her boots. For her hair: in a bob, like Mystic’s belligerent-looking women, those monochrome stencil drawings that you’d see in the streets in the 1980s. I also Gérard Depardieu only pops up at the end From a certain perspective you could say of the film, like a grand finale to a journey I owe the film’s French title to Depardieu through, and to, love.