At the Red Sea International Film Festival (Red Sea IFF), UniversalCinema Magazine was able to interview producer Guillaume De Seille. What follows, is a portion of that interview.
Cara-Lynn Branch, UniversalCinema Magazine (UM): Can you tell us a little about your work?
Guillaume De Seille (GDS): I’m a French producer during mainly co-production in emerging countries with pretty much young [first-time] directors. But after 20 years, I’m starting to get old with these directors that I’ve been working with some for 18 years, on four films.
I’m still doing first films. But also, forth with the guys I’m following. But in countries pretty specific in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and Caucasus not so much in the Arab World. But I mainly working in Georgia, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Eastern Europe.
(UM): Right now, we are in the Red Sea IFF. What is the main reason that you decided to come here? Do you want to work with Arab filmmakers?
(GDS): Yes, because it’s [a developing film country]. First, it’s a rich country and I’ve been working with rich countries. They want to do something but they don’t know how to handle it. And of course, they want to do big things, but it is not that easy. [After] a couple of years, they realized they need to do R&D like everyone, research and development. So, they need to focus on some young talents. That’s why I identify the young talents, especially in these young countries without a hundred years of cinematic tradition.
So that’s what I did in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, and hopefully I can do that work also in some of the Arab world, and especially in Saudi Arabia. So here, every year since last year, I’m meeting the young generation, and trying to identify the good guys.
(UM): You mentioned, it is the second year that you’re coming to the festival. How do you think of the festival compared to the last year? Did you see any development, or what area of the festival do you think needs more work?
(GDS): Frankly, last year was the first edition with problems, but at least it was in the city. This year it’s bigger, but it’s not in the city. So, I’m missing the city a little bit. I mean the authenticity of Saudi Arabia. Even though Al-Balad might not be the most attentive place here, still it was better than the garden of a five plus star hotel, so I missed that. In terms of attendance, it’s basically the same, or probably a bit more. In terms of quality of projects, it’s probably better than Cairo and is competitive with Marrakech, so they’re doing good. They have the right people.
(UM): This year there is some concern that it’s very Americanized. So the American as stars, so they don’t take much attention to, for example Arab Cinema. I’m just wondering what is your thought on this subject?
(GDS): They’re chasing, obviously the two directions. I was hoping that they would keep in mind, the research and development and young talents. Obviously, they focus on Netflix and superhero from the Arab world stuff, which is not exactly my field of activity, but let’s see if that brings something. I still saw that Arab stars are recognized and everybody takes pictures with them. I’m not so much worried about the orientation. I’m more worried about the fact that in the development market, in the pitching sessions, they really focus on young emerging talents for festival and that’s it.
Let’s see if both are going to survive next year. And what’s it’s going to really emerge in terms of finished films because we don’t see many finished Saudi films traveling outside of Saudi Arabia yet.
(UM): Have you seen anything from Saudi Arabia (at Red Sea IFF)?
(GDS): Here, no. I should but I will with links of the short film that the girls I met pitching a project will send me hopefully. If they are not appointed head of the commission (the Saudi Film Commission) next week. I don’t watch blindly Saudi films. It needs to come from the talent, giving it to me because that’s what they just did, and I’m interested in what they’re doing next.
(UM): And is there any movie that you’ve decided to get involved with from meetings here?
(GDS): No, no decision yet. But what we also noticed is that female filmmakers are extremely present. At least half of the filmmakers were female, and 90% of the Saudi producers were female which was bit astonishing. So, it’s a good thing. It’s a good direction. Let’s see how it turns out again, in terms of finished filming traveling outside, which it’s not there yet.
(UM): You mentioned that you are mostly interested in the first-time filmmakers, and when you are trying to work with the filmmakers, what are the criteria that you are considered to work with on them? For example, do you the fact of gender, or diversity, play a role in your decision?
(GDS): No, no. What I really care [about] is basically, I cannot work with primitive directors that are just saying, “I want to do a film next week.” No. I care about people who are thinking about doing a thing for ten years and watching basically, one film a day, for ten years and then we can talk.
(UM): I heard that it’s becoming much more difficult for independent films to get the money back. Especially the streamers are not helping a lot, or they don’t provide much financial return. So independent cinema is becoming much harder to sustain.
(GDS): No, it’s not exactly this, it’s a bit more complicated. In simple words, I still get some good money from streamers, sometimes even 300,000 euros. So, it’s not that bad, even though it’s not the million for independent arthouse films from emerging countries, not in English. The problem is, the streamers, they hardly care about renewal of talents and research and development, and they don’t care about first and second arthouse films for a festival. Actually, they’re even afraid of this because they don’t have the expertise, the knowledge, and they don’t care so much. So, they would commission stupid films very quickly, even with young guys, which is not what we do, or the outside world does, so that’s a bit out of the subject.
What they would do is that they would let the national institution like the Saudi Film Commission, for instance, to finance the first and second film of dozens of guys. And then after the third first films, if the guy is not basically Nanni Moretti or Lars von Trier, the streamers would buy the talent and would say, “Okay, just do a thing for us. We have the couple of million you need.” And we see these already for instance in Turkey, which is a more developed and old country, let’s say than Saudi Arabia in terms of cinema and streaming work.
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