Valéry CARNOY
Film director

Valéry received a writing grant for his next feature film.

What is your artistic background?
My passion for cinema came at the age of 20, and I first became interested in videography and documentary, following a strong relationship my mother had with Casamance, a region of Senegal, where she partly lives. I then joined the National Institute for the Performing Arts in Brussels (INSAS) at the age of 25, after completing a master's degree in social and intercultural psychology at the Free University of Brussels. At INSAS, I specialised in photography, before moving on to directing and writing fiction.

How do you view your profession today?
My main interest is fiction, particularly comedy-drama. I try to write realistic stories with colourful characters and situations that will transcend reality, to make them spectacular and memorable. I like to play on the contrast between violence and tenderness and create characters that are more endearing than heroic. I mainly use humour to breathe life into a dramatic story. For me, cinema must remain fundamentally optimistic; I want to depict a world, a society that despite its diversity and inequalities, shows us how emotionally connected we are to each other. I see film as a medium that allows me to tell stories on a micro level, and which focus mainly on human otherness.

How do you see yourself in five years? in 10 years?
I hope to stay optimistic and bring to life the two feature film projects I am currently developing: La Danse des Renards and Les Amours Spectaculaires. Two fundamentally different projects that explore comedy-drama, adolescence and excessive masculinity in the first, and romantic comedy, adultery and double life in the second.

This interview was conducted in 2021
Photography credit: Julie Glassberg