Anne Émond
Nuit #1, Anne Émond (2011)
Anne Émond is a Québécois screenwriter, producer, and film director. Her debut film, Nuit #1, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it won Best Canadian First Feature Film; Taipei, where it won a Special Mention; and Vancouver, where it won Best Canadian Feature Film. More recently, Émond's film Our Loved Ones premiered at Locarno, Göteborg, and FNC - Festival du Nouveau Cinéma; her third feature, Nelly, premiered at Toronto and Palm Springs; her latest film, Young Juliette, screened at Thessaloniki, Hamburg, and Tromsø.
In an exclusive interview with Filmatique, Anne Émond discusses love as the impetus for filmmaking, hiking in Turkey with her actresses, the importance of trust, and her newest project—a farm.
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FILMATIQUE: Nuit #1 begins at a rave, where nameless men and women dance, their skin gleaming in neon hues. From the crowd emerge Clara and Nikolaï, two strangers who return to Nikolai's rather desolate flat, where they furiously make love. This immediate, corporeal intimacy leads unexpectedly into a night spent navigating the chasm that remains between them, as they alternately lay bare their faults, fears, and truths. When did you first have the idea to make this story into your first feature?
ANNE ÉMOND: I was about 26 years old when I first started to think about this film. In fact, at the beginning I didn't know it would become a film, and I didn't know it would become my first feature. At this time, I was working on short films all the time and also had a day job. I remember being excessive in every sphere of my life: shooting short after short with friends with no budget, partying a lot, having fun, not sleeping enough. I had no career plans at all (not that I feel like I have one now).
If I am to be perfectly honest, this film started as a love letter. I'd met a man in the same context that Clara and Nikolaï meet in the film; but we never had the 'talking part.' I went crazy about him, but he was not at all interested in me. My idea was to write this long letter/monologue/diary, and then, when he would read it, he would understand how interesting, talented, deep I was. And love me back. Of course, I never sent the script to the guy, but this is how it started: me wanting to be loved.
And I realize this is what I do in all my films. I try to re-write history so it feels better. My father died when I was a teenager and we never had a chance to say proper goodbyes. In my second film, the main character receives a letter from his father, right after he commits suicide. This is the letter I never received. Each of my films starts with a deep need, a deep desire. Each also starts with love: the nameless men and women dancing at the beginning of the films are my closest friends, they have been for the last 20 years.
Nuit #1, Anne Émond (2011)
FLMTQ: Catherine De Léan and Dimitri Storoge expertly inhabit Clara and Nikolaï, two flawed yet endearing characters who find themselves adrift in modern existence. Can you discuss your casting process for this film? How did you encounter the actors that became your two leads, and what was your rehearsal process like?
AE: I already knew Catherine De Léan, because we had been working together previously, on a short film called Sophie Lavoie, which could be seen almost as a screen test for Nuit #1. The two films are quite similar, aesthetically and thematically. I knew how solid but also how vulnerable she could be. I knew how brave and committed she was—and still is. Clara is not an easy part, emotionally nor physically. It requires total commitment.
It might be weird, but the main preparation we did for the film was to become friends. This was easy. We went for coffees in parks, we talked a lot, we went on a very tough and intense hiking trip in the south of Turkey for a couple of weeks. We had a lot of funny and crazy adventures together. At one point, we just trusted each other. I met Dimitri Storoge in France—I had seen him in different films before and had a strong feeling that he was the guy. We had drinks in Paris, talked about the script, and I offered him the part.
We tried to rehearse, the three of us together, in a small white local theater, and very soon realized we didn't need it. The truth and the answers would appear on set.
FLMTQ: The cinematography of the film is quite striking, from the Academy ratio shooting format, which encloses the characters in a nearly claustrophobic atmosphere, to the long takes of characters speaking without interruption, the camera's refusal to look away magnifying the accumulative emotional power of those moments. I am thinking, in particular, of Clara's monologue in the bathroom. How did you devise your aesthetic approach for this film, and how did you work with your creative collaborators to bring that vision to life?
AE: I never really considered shooting this film differently. I was deeply interested in these two actors, in love with their faces, bodies, expressions, emotions. I was not interested in showing anything else. Also, most of the time, I thought the dialogue was not bad at all. I was confident. The creative collaborators (d.o.p. and art director) totally understood what we were doing and shared my passion and interest for the film that we were making.
I remember, though, that some people on set would laugh at me. Not to my face, but I remember catching people saying very mean comments about our work. Some of them thought all those monologues and close shots were very boring. At the time it made me cry. Today I think it's pretty funny—it corresponds to public reactions to the film: love or hate.
Nuit #1, Anne Émond (2011)