During the Red Sea International Film Festival (Red Sea IFF), Universal Cinema Film & TV Journal’s Amir Ganjavie was able to interview Hervé Aubron, who joined the selection committee for Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight (Quinzaine des cinéastes) last year under its new Artistic Director Julien Rejl.
Amir Ganjavie, UniversalCinema Magazine (UM): Can you discuss the selection process?
Hervé Aubron (HA): We are only eight members of selection committee, with five consultants helping us. It’s quite tough, because last year we received something like 4,000 movies (2200 shorts and 1,800 features) and we have something like four months to make the selection of 20 features and 10 shorts. In the beginning, films are randomly attributed to one of the selectors. Either you consider it’s bad or irrelevant, and you just stop the process, either you like it, or just have a doubt, and you ask for a second vision, and so on. Some films emerge progressively by this way. Of course, it’s not only online. We speak aloud, and we still have collective screenings for debated movies.
(UM): You are a critic from Cahiers du Cinema. I noticed that Cahiers has a very specific approach to cinema. I’m curious if Directors’ Fortnight have this approach.
(HA): We don’t. Julien Rejl, our Artistic Director, didn’t want a monolithic committee. We’re not only in the Cahiers tradition – and, by the way, Cahiers are not so monolithic either! There are quite different sensibilities in the committee.
(UM): Do you have a definition for a good film?
(HA): No. I would say by provocation that a good movie is not always a good sign to be selected. I want to be surprised. When you are surprised, you see stuff you don’t know exactly what to think about, and if you like it or not. French philosopher Gilles Deleuze joked about a publisher proudly attesting that nowadays we could not miss a new Proust or or new Beckett, that we would recognise it. Big laugh of Deleuze : by definition, the new Proust is totally unknown. How could we recognise it ? So we know what is a well made work, we perhaps know what is junk, but we are above all interested in the movies which can’t be reduced to these two categories.
(UM): We have lots of talk about difference or inclusion at festivals. I’m just curious how do you go about seeking this kind of surprise when we have this kind of culture that sometimes seems homogenized, or everybody has the same ideas about race, gender –
(HA): Of course, these topics are important to us. We don’t ignore them, but we like strangeness, films not just testifying or illustrating they are all clear about that. One of the member of the Fortnight Committee, Daniella Shreir, is the British publisher of Another Gaze, one of the main reviews about these kind of problematics. But she also wants to be surprised and absolutely doesn’t seek for manifestos. Last year, we had for example in the selection an American movie by a woman called Joanna Arnow (The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed). I never saw something like that. Joanna Arnow is New York-based, and it is a sort of self-fiction, about her sexual practice of BDSM. She’s a submissive, and it’s a diary, which intricates her sexuality, her work, and her family. So much complexity and humour.
(UM): I’ve spoken with other programmers and a few have told me their work is kind of unstable, they work for a couple of months, and for the rest of the month they need to find another job or work other festivals and that was a concern for them. I’m just curious your job a short-term contract or a yearly job? And how does it affect your work life?
(HA): It’s quite complicated because it is not a full-time job. It’s more than a full-time job during the process of selection, which is like four months. But then we all have other activities and works. On my side, I’m a journalist and critic, also making lectures in university and other institutions.
(UM): You mentioned that the Cahiers du cinema is not monolithic. It has different people with different backgrounds. But I remember that even in Cahiers, I see that always they take positions about certain directors. For example, Sorrentino, I remember that they never liked Sorrentino. I’m curious how this kind of situation interferes with your selection process.
(HA): You take an extreme example! I don’t like Sorrentino either, but I’m not alone in the committee. It’s not a special conflict: we also want to be surprised by films from directors we are not fond of. But our priority is really to find new filmmakers, without ignoring unused proposals of experienced directors.
(UM): Are you more likely to take a film recommended to you by a well-known distributor?
(HA): We try to struggle against some of the cliches about Fortnight. We take documentaries, we take animation movies, and people think that we are not a space for that, but that’s not true. Moreover, you don’t need to have a distributor or a seller to be in Fortnight. Quite a lot of movies in the last selection didn’t have any French distributors or sellers. There is no pre-selection and we watch everything. You can have self-produced movies without even a producer. A distributor is not a point for us – but it isn’t an handicap either!
(UM): Okay. Because some directors told me, that if you have a famous actor attached, your project will be taken more seriously. One of the distributors told me it’s very important for your festival because they want to be sure that any movie played, will have a full theater. They don’t want a movie without a star or a good script.
(HA): Of course, we want the screening full, but I think that Fortnight is strong enough and reliable to appeal to audiences. But that doesn’t prevent us to screen well known directors! Quentin Tarantino was the special guest of the last edition. The main problem in Cannes is now the seat booking numeric application, which doesn’t work well. Sometimes you have some empty seats just because of it…
(UM): I know you might not be aware of this, but when I compare Cannes with the past years, I see that more and more people are coming, and sometimes it’s becoming difficult to walk in the street during the Cannes. Many people are coming to the festival, and the problem of having venues should soon become a problem of needing new venues or some way to increase the capacity. I’m curious, what is the situation right now in Cannes? Do you have plans for making bigger theater rooms or creating extra screenings?
(HA): We have extra screenings in other theaters, but the city of Cannes is not extensive. As you know, Cannes is too full during the festival. In consideration of this, Julien Rejl has created a new form of diffusion of the Fortnight’s selection after Cannes, in all France, in something like 30 cities, but also in Switzerland, Belgium, Japan.
(UM): I remember Julien during Cannes and he said something about how if filmmakers don’t get accepted to the main competition of Cannes, they should not see Directors’ Fortnight as a plan B. I’m curious what is the relationship with Cannes?
(HA): We are in concurrent because Thierry Frémaux chose it. He decides not to communicate with the other independent sections. It’s his choice, he doesn’t want any special coordination. After all, it allows some firm decisions for each of us, but it can sacrifice some movies, may be, which don’t find the best place for them.
(UM): So, they don’t tell you they’ve already selected this movie, you cannot select it?
(HA): We discover the official selection like everybody during its announcement, even if, of course, those we have invited tell us before if they finally go in the official. But it’s of course not a problem to finally consider or reconsider a film not selected in the official ! Before, we can just underline that maybe it’s better, to be watched and identified, to be shown in a tighneted selection like Fortnight, than to be lost in the smog of the official, with all its sections.
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