My French Films by uniFrance

In Najac, life is lived and felt, things created and everything transformed. It’s 2001 and a drama from the other end of the world will touch all of humanity. While a period of fear and bitterness has just begun, life in the country follows its course with simplicity, humor and humanity. October 2008, winter is knocking on the small Aveyron village’s door. Mr. Sauzeau, a brilliant mechanic with a well-oiled heart, passes away. And with his death, a little of Najac’s soul also fades. The final part in the trilogy focusing on Najac, after La vie comme elle va and Najac à vous la terre.

Interview with Jean-Henri Meunier for ‘Y’a pire ailleurs‘ (Could Be Worse).

1) After “As Life Goes By” and “Najac Calling Over to You, Earth” (selected by the Cannes Film Festival in 2006), you’re offering us “There is Worse Elsewhere,” the last film in your trilogy about Najac, “one of the most beautiful villages in France.” How were you able to earn the villagers’ trust?

I moved to Najac in June of 1995, not to make movies but to leave behind the hectic Parisian life and go green with my family. Our closest neighbor was M. Henri Sauzeau, the poet-mechanic who appears in all three films. Henri is the best neighbor I’ve ever had. He lived 50 meters away from our house and we got to know each pretty fast, then became good friends. He joined us for dinner every night, we picked up his groceries and helped him to fill out his administrative paperwork. He became a part of the family. He’s the one that really inspired me to start filming. Then, I met others at his place: Serge Itkine, the peasant baker who brought him bread; Henri Dardé, the itinerant farmer who came to chop his wood. Everyone else I met at the village bistro. All the “characters” in the film became friends, sometimes very close friends.

Being able to film alone with a Sony mini-DV VX1000, then a Sony PD150 DVCAM, allowed me to always have the camera handy. The people I chose to film were very comfortable with the camera, and I also spent a lot of time together with them without filming. But when you film everyday reality, life offers you some moments that are magical, astonishing, wonderful and intimate. I started filming for the trilogy in the fall of 1996, and finished in May 2009. During that time, I also made documentaries about musicians: Ray Lema, L. Subramaniam, and Mina Agossi. They took me to Africa, India, Syria and other countries. I shot the films in Najac during my off times. That is how trust was born, through time and of course, friendship.

2) You work very closely with one of Orson Welles’ editors.

I had the good luck, honor and pleasure of meeting Yves Deschamps after my second feature, thanks to my friend Jean-Jacques Flori. He was the director of photography and cameraman for the two fiction films I directed: “Should’ve been careful, the shock was intense” (1976) and “The Rex Gang” (1979). Yves, with whom I’ve always worked since, is an editing virtuoso. He’s an editor that puts himself entirely at the service of the film. He has no ego issues, and nothing gets past him. The three films came out of 500-hours-worth of footage and the preparations for filming went on for about 9 months. Then, Yves and I edited all the sequences that could be edited, and it was only after that that we began to construct the continuity of “As Life Goes By” in 2003. We got back to editing 3 years later, and we put together “Najac Calling Over to You, Earth.” Then, in 2011, we edited “There is Worse Elsewhere.”

He has edited all my films except for “Violin from the Heart,” with L. Subramaniam, because he was working on another film at the time. He has given me a lot, learned everything, and he became a very close friend.

3) You’ve left Najac…What will your next films be about?

Since I’ve moved to Toulouse, I’ve shot a film called “Nothing to Lose.” It tells the story of Fakir, a homeless wanderer with “the wind at his feet,” and his involvement with the Children of Don Quixote in Toulouse in their struggle to put a roof over their heads. I also started working on a sequel, called “Everything to Gain,” in which I follow three of the homeless subjects of “Nothing to Lose,” who have left the streets and are now well-housed thanks to love, education and work. This sequel should be finished in the fall of 2012. And I made a musical with the musician Bernardo Sandoval, who wrote and performed the original scores of “Rien à perdre (Nothing to Lose)” and “Y’a Pire Ailleurs (Could Be Worse)“.

And here’s the subject of my next film, which is currently in production and will be shot over the next 3 years: “There are some young people who, traumatized by a tragic family situation, reject just as forcibly as they feel rejected. They reject frameworks and institutions, thus undermining the republican mission of protection and integration that targets them. They are the thorn in the foot of the pseudo-democratic ideal that wants, without exceptions, to put everyone in their place: they are called “Les Incasables (The Unplaceables)”.

10 New French Feature Films 03/14/2012

Sébastien Meunier — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 11:06:55 +0000

30° couleur by Lucien Jean-Baptiste & Philippe Larue

38 témoins by Lucas Belvaux

Bi, Don’t Be Afraid! by Di Phan Dang

Cloclo by Florent Emilio Siri

Step Up To The Plate by Paul Lacoste

Le Chemin noir by Abdallah Badis

The Ditch by Bing Wang

Beast Paradise by Estelle Larrivaz

Normal ! by Merzak Allouache

Terraferma by Emanuele Crialese

8 New French Feature Films 03/07/2012

Sébastien Meunier — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 11:01:41 +0000

A l’aveugle by Xavier Palud

A l’ombre de la république by Stéphane Mercurio

Au cœur du combat by Ivan Castellano

The Chef (Comme un chef) by Daniel Cohen

Fengming by Bing Wang

Indignados by Tony Gatlif

Nos plus belles vacances by Philippe Lellouche

Greed (Possessions) by Éric Guirado

Séquence: un film, un invité, trois minutes

Sébastien Meunier — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 15:16:18 +0000

Sorry, this entry is only available in Français.

4 New French Feature Films 02/29/2012

Sébastien Meunier — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:49:36 +0000

Sorties du 29 février 2012: toutes les sorties sur Unifrance.org

De mémoires d’ouvriers de Gilles Perret

L’Hiver dernier de John Shank

Les Infidèles de Jean Dujardin, Gilles Lellouche, Emmanuelle Bercot, Fred Cavayé, Michel Hazanavicius

Rives de Armel Hostiou

Jean Dujardin (Best Leading Actor – Oscars 2012) “sleeping on people”

Sébastien Meunier — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 18:55:56 +0000

Jean Dujardin, the first French actor to receive an Oscar for Best Actor, is in the spotlight everywhere: from his many international awards to his royal reception at the airport by about a hundred journalists and onlookers on his return to Paris.

In the official group picture of Oscar 2012 nominees, Jean Dujardin pretended to be sleeping on George Clooney’s shoulder. Since then, pictures have sprouted all over the internet, showing Dujardin sleeping on just about everybody. The site of reference, with hundreds of doctored pictures, is:

http://jeansleepingonpeople.tumblr.com/

You can even make one yourself, by downloading a template here:http://jeansleepingonpeople.tumblr.com/download

Have fun with Jean!