Katell QUILLÉVÉRÉ et Hélier CISTERNE
Film directors

Katell and Hélier received a writing grant for their next feature film.

Interview of Hélier Cisterne
What is your artistic background ?
I grew up between the Lot and the Corrèze, in a world of villages and countryside. My artistic path began there, where I studied music, and I dreamed of rock n roll, hip hop and revolt. I lived very close to my family, and one day at the cinema with my paternal grandparents I watched Crash by David Cronenberg. And I discovered the power, the freedom of cinema that can change our view of the reality that surrounds us, the one that is closest as well as the one that is farthest, the one that we think we know as well as the imaginary worlds that are within us. I went up to Paris, as they say, to learn cinema. I got a place in Philosophy at the University of Saint Denis, and I met Katell Quillévéré in class there. My life changed and so did my plans. Katell, who had done a preparatory course for the big film schools, finally decided very quickly to work at the SRF (Society of Film Directors) in parallel with her Master's degree in Film Research. I tried my luck with a script at the Greek Film Institute, which financed the first short films... and, thanks to them, Dehors, my first short film, came about in 2003. I met Justin Taurand at the Pantin festival who had selected my film, and he became the producer of my next short and of all the following ones until now! At the same time Katell was making À Bras le Corps, her first short film, then two others in a row, and soon Un Poison Violent, her first feature film in 2010. I was living from small food jobs, in parallel with writing my projects when I wasn't directing. And I completed my first feature, Vandal, in 2013 after a long process of development and production. Then Éric Rochant contacted me because he was looking for film directors to launch his personal project for a series, Le Bureau des Légendes, a series with a realistic style and a great focus on the actors, two qualities he said he saw in my film.  Katell directed Suzanne in 2013, then Réparer les Vivants, the adaptation of the novel, in 2016. Then, Katell and I started the project of adapting the novel De nos Frères Blessés, which became the first screenplay we wrote together and my second feature film. Today we are both finalizing a six-episode fiction film, Le monde de Demain, about the birth of hip hop in France, for Arte and Netflix, which we co-directed.

How do you view your profession today ?
Whether the object is a film, a series, or a different filmic object, the director's job remains unchanged because it has always been different according to each situation and each person. Directing, show running, project managing, is like setting out on a voyage across an ocean whose map you have drawn but whose territory you are discovering; there are a thousand ways to share it with a crew... and in the end, it is above all a job of adapting to what you discover, to the obstacles and favourable currents you encounter to reach an objective you have set for yourself (in a personal project), or that you accomplish for others (in a commissioned project). To direct is to create. And to create is to assert and assume a vision of the world, or at least of the part that one tells. The strength today is that even if making films remains too much reserved for the privileged classes..., something of the aristocracy or that form of elitism has largely been eroded. The idea that those who create can come from anywhere is widely shared. This is already a first step. Finally, the horizon of a true equality between men and women in the number of films directed by women, their right to state a point of view, to further our representation of the world and to build our imagination as much as the privileged men who have shaped our vision of the world until now, is also taking shape.  And more widely, the two years that we have just gone through have shaken up and upset our relationship to daily life, to our outings and to the collective spaces... and so also to the screen. The current crisis has accelerated the things that were already taking shape in our relationship to cinema, television and platforms. At the turn of the 90's, with the explosion of VHS, modern TV sets and Canal +, French cinema was moribund and the cinema was not given much time to save itself... but productions renewed their offers, cinemas modernized, programmers and exhibitors rolled up their sleeves... the years before Covid were those of record attendance figures. The times offer us, as always, no doubt an opportunity to renew ourselves. So much the better!

How do you see yourself in 5 years ? in 10 years ?
Working on a film project, and a series project in parallel... or the opposite. Because it's only the "doing" that counts, the journey of creating a project. I also see myself continuing to improve, to question myself in my ways of working with others, to be more attentive and human in all situations. To continue to detach myself from the still very present preconceived ideas according to which a director is strong when he is authoritarian, inflexible, intractable... I keep discovering the vanity of these ideas with which we have surrounded ourselves. And to spend all the rest of the time with those who matter to me, family, friends and especially not chasing ambition and vanities. Only the journey, and those with whom we take it, count.

Interview conducted in 2021
Photography credit: Julia Grandperret