How did you get into film production?
I’ve watched a lot of movies, which I like doing. Other than that, basically, I’ve done a lot of graduate studies, which I enjoyed: literature, arts, cinema, fine arts…. I had some fascinating classes, some less fascinating -Rohmer, Rouch, Noguez, Gajos, Ciment Gette, Le Bot, Torock,…–, all of them men, actually, who developed practice and criticism at the same time. Before and with them, I tried quite a few things. I’d already done quite a few movies and some local exhibits in Super 8, written a lot of non-published work, and done some public reading, sometimes as a part of performance art. One day, I got quite a bit of money for the screenplay for a short film I’d written really quickly, and naively, with a lot of energy, one I wanted to direct. So it was time to find a producer, and I didn’t know what that entailed. It ended up a whole affair. I had to go with some husky friends to get back money the producer had swindled. He’d cashed in the grant from the CNC (French National Center of Cinematography), but wouldn’t write a single check when I needed to rent equipment for the shoot. I eventually made the film (Teresa, 1986) a couple months later with another producer; it did rather well, won a few awards and was shown quite a bit. I came out of all that wanting to create my own structure, and created Le Jour/La Nuit Productions. The structure was flexible and reliable. And inevitably, a structure like that is of interest to filmmakers. I produced several short and medium-length films, including my own, some documentaries, including a film co-produced with Arte by Wiswanadhan, whose work I had followed. He’s a painter who had done wonderful work with cinematic investigation in several (very long) films about the Elements. I also produced Philippe Harel’s first feature, Un éte sans histoire(s) (French Summer). That adventure allowed us to make a feature length film “on the fly,” in extremely successful conditions, and got things moving in terms of production, because with very few other films, it allowed “self-produced” movies to change the rules of obtaining CNC approval.

Could you tell us about creating C-P Productions? What is the company’s editorial policy?
That’s when I met Pierre Carles, who had nearly finished editing his film Pas vu pas pris (literally: not seen not caught). He was trying to make the movie exist and get it released. I first suggested he create his own company, considering everything he’d already managed to do with the film, and he thought I was just copping out (I think quite a few people had already copped out with this project). And then we thought, it would be a good idea to put something together to make the film exist, and to continue the work alone. With everyone who had participated in the film, we created C-P Productions. We were all the more encouraged by the fact that we had a distributor, Cara M., who believed in it. So I created another structure around this sole film, which I saw as an original comedy with at last a new critical point of view, and I also saw in it another way of doing things in an independent and creative manner. And then the film did well, we didn’t get sued, the audience really supported it. It should be mentioned that people not only came to see it in the theaters, but also beforehand, many contributed to a group fund that allowed it to be finished under good conditions and make it to the theater.
Then we decided to keep the company and see if we could make another movie together. Pierre Carles wanted to do something on Pierre Bourdieu, he had begun with VF Films, but it had reached a dead end. We revived the project, the writing and development, and then we got the confirmation that it was impossible to finance a project by Carles via any co-production or advance purchase agreement from a TV station. But La Sociologie est un sport de combat (Sociology Is A Fighting Sport) is now the benchmark movie on one of the greatest French intellectuals of the 20th century, which is still at the theaters and is being shown abroad.
Being forced to produce without backing from TV means that on the one hand we have great editorial leeway, but also… little money. Success at the box office (between 55,000 and 163,000 tickets sold) –even if it doesn’t allow to pay off the film– generates support fund to begin new projects, which is fundamental for French independent cinema. And it especially encourages us to go on. The network that supports this work –the audience, the theaters–, and also thanks to box office receipts that allow people to see the film afterwards in other ways, means that we have a sort of tacit contract, as though someone told you “OK, we’re willing to see what else you can do.” It doesn’t give you carte blanche, and is in no way a professional endorsement, but it increases the pressure even more; we say to ourselves, there really are people who want to watch something different. The editorial policy is therefore determined by what we want to make and by knowing that certain doors are closed to us.
Which means that we have to accept these specificities, which make up a sort of “C-P label”. While I have several films by Carles in development, it has also made an opening for other filmmakers, with Christophe Coello and Stéphane Goxe, with whom Pierre co-directed Attention danger travail (literally: Beware of Work) and Volem rien foutre al païs. Moreover, I’m developing their next project together. We’re also finishing production on the sequel to there investigation on work, which will be released next year, entitled Qui dit mieux?, and I’m co-producing Christophe Coello’s next documentary.
With C-P, Pierre and I are developing and co-producing Thomas Bardinet’s third feature length movie, Les petits poucets, a work of fiction, with, notably, Christophe Alévèque, which we’re releasing in April 2008. It’s apparently the film the most removed from C-P’s usual spectrum to date because it’s fiction. But it also corresponds to our independent way of working and offers a unique look at its subject. All these films are prototypes, unique works that need time to come to light. My possibilities for getting backing to develop projects can’t happen for a lot of films at the same time, despite all the desires and requests. It’s a bit improvised.

What’s different about Pierre Carles’s work?
That it’s been blacklisted by some? … but has plenty of ideas…

How did the projects for Attention danger travail and Volem come about?
It’s atypical in terms of production, but typical in the way we want to go about it: extensive research, rigorous and at the same time with a desire to allow leeway for spontaneity, a simple relationship with reality and proposing important things, open for discussion, without taking ourselves too seriously. For that, we’re taking the luxury –without luxurious means– of time, time to think and to work with others. These two films bring together collective stakes put into practice: several directors, several film editors, several layers of shooting and a long relationship with the topic. The project for Volem was launched knowing that there would be a rather long time of development and investigation. The film was released four years after the “foundations” were begun, longer than we’d planned, but this was due to the fact that during their research, the directors had pulled together extremely rich material that brought about another film, Attention danger travail, one stage in their investigation that seemed important to make public if we wanted to go further with the reflection on a critique of the wage system, precisely with the public itself. And we released this state of their reflection in the theaters.

How do you go about getting such works distributed? Does it require special means to get them circulated?
In a more and more difficult economy for fragile films, of course you need a specific reflection, which also resembles what I do in production: painstaking groundwork and a close follow-up for the duration. But it’s not particularly original, since all independent producers have this same desire to create a true link, to go into the theaters, towards the audience. Which isn’t necessarily legitimate: the movies should be able to exist on their own as well. But one of our only strengths against promotional machines is to have a true exchange with the moviegoers, in theaters, but also elsewhere, and there is a close working relationship, which is sometimes stormy, with the directors, reactivated sometimes by contact other than in the theater (e-mails, mail, group meetings, “non-commercial” projections, various means of piracy…). There’s a sort of dialogue. The need increases when the film is released in the theaters, or on DVD, because this is the only way of seeing our films… which aren’t always bought by French television.
In fact, that’s what Qui dit mieux? is about. This film was shot during numerous debates (about 100) when Attention danger travail was released. It could be seen as a homage to art house theaters, which remain a forum for non-conformist debate, where non-formatted discourse can be heard on the screen and in the room itself. It will especially be a populist film showing the faces you never see on TV, and rarely in movies, of people expressing themselves outside of habitual venues, and interacting. It’s a wonderful dialogue with multiple voices, were those in many different theaters in France answer each other, surprise one another, insult each other, express doubts and give proposals, and share in the rare pleasure of thinking together.
But for this dialog to exist, you need the time to make the films visible. Theaters must make a commitment to support this approach, and while it’s not easy for them, with the quicker and quicker rotation of movies, it’s essential for me, who comes along with films that aren’t completely paid off, nor even have complete backing.
Box office results for these “little” movies, original films with a particular approach, are rather disturbing, even when they get very good press. Many of these movies only sell between 10,000 and 30,000 tickets. These movies are different, often consistent in their mode of production and distribution, and are always offer something unique. And they don’t do all that well. On the one hand, the audience’s and the theater owners’ level of curiosity is sometimes dispiriting, as are the economic sources for developing new things. But on the other hand, the sign of resistance is encouraging: it’s great that in France we can still have so many theaters, so many moviegoers, so many films, inventive directors and… have films with only 10,000 tickets sold. The rest is like the other things, because with fiercer and fiercer single-product consumerism, you can no longer give simple lip service to resistance. And all participants need to imagine how to do things differently. That’s what we try to do with each movie.

Could you tell us about one or several films that are especially important to you?
They’re movies where an irreplaceable force is at work, with a unique voice, a style, real physical commitment. I use the word commitment intentionally, because it’s often applied to the latest films I’ve produced, directed by Carles, and it means they are identified in a narrower spectrum, one that “only” considers social problems, and at the same time are distanced from movies where you talk only about angles, lighting, depth of field, acting and cutting up the plotline. I like what’s primitive in cinema, with a physical commitment by those who are filming, those being filmed and those watching. That’s the relationship I like because it’s debatable, always physical, human and risky. Those are the films that are dear to me, physically, with direct movies and with fiction. I’m thinking about the body in Jean-François Richet’s Etat des lieux, where the revolt wins me over precisely because it happens through work on bodies violated by “social” issues, which themselves have no body, as well as the apparently foreign bodies pulsating in Claire Denis’s J’ai pas de sommeil or Beau travail, and of the different people in Kramer’s Route One or in Wang Bing’s West of the Tracks. I could go on with a list of movies that, for me, make up this cinema that’s dear to me, where physical commitment gives a unique experience to the moviegoer. Because even though these films are very different, they’re full of meaning, make a statement, they come to you as a whole, weighted down by the filmmaker’s personality. They open up a space for sharing, a place to put yourself, no matter how awkward that place may be. It’s not a window onto the world you can calmly look through from your seat; here, you move with other bodies, you’re shoved, you’ve literally changed places by the end of the movie. And not because you’ve been manipulated by a brilliant plot, but because you follow along with the approach, made up from a narrative of bodies sharing the world.
But the film I’ve worn out many videotapes of is The Misfits, where Marilyn’s body vibrates with each frame, where the horses are unbridled, where everything becomes possible again, even for worn out bodies, while the stars continue to shine in the night.