Lucile Hadzihalilovic/Interview
/September2025
You started your career with short films. Was that formative? Difficult?
"I started out in a rather unusual way. It was in the 1990s, and after attending film school [IDHEC, NR], I made a film that wasn't quite a short, nor quite a feature; it was a 50-minute film called Mimi (La Bouche de jean-Pierre). I produced it myself. At the time, Gaspar Noé and I set up a production company, [Les Films de la Zone], with the idea of producing our own short films. It was an extremely formative experience, and quite lengthy; it took me three years to finish. The film was very well received, it was shown at many festivals, and was even released in theaters at the time, although it wasn't a feature film. All of that opened doors for me." LH
What place do your short films occupy in your cinematic career?
"I've made a few short films, three others. [The first] was commissioned by the Ministry of Health and Canal+, but we had a lot of freedom to do what we wanted. The film is called Good Boys (Use Condoms) , and it was to promote condoms. It was a rather unusual case of a short film.
After that, between Innocence and Evolution , I made a short film called Nectar . There was a long gap between the two feature films, so it mainly served to get me back on set, to make a film. It didn't really open any doors for me, because I had already made Innocence, but it allowed me to make a film again at a time when I was feeling a bit desperate about not being able to make another one.
Then I made a third short film, [ De Natura ], which was a proposal to make a film as part of a residency in Romania. The idea was to spend a week in a village in Romania and improvise a film there. I was lucky that it was shown at quite a few festivals, even though it was a very small, improvised film. I haven't made many short films. I've made them in different circumstances each time." LH
Are you still interested in the short film format? Do you plan to make more short films?
"I think it's great to have films of different lengths; it's very exciting to make films that can be 5, 15, or 40 minutes long. Unfortunately, it often takes a lot of time and energy. Sometimes you get the impression that making a feature film requires the same effort. That's not entirely true, but you do get that impression sometimes. It's more a question of how much time it takes to make a short film when you have feature film projects on the side." LH
How has your conception of the short film evolved over time?
"When I made Mimi in the late 90s, there weren't that many sources of funding. We had a relationship with short films where we perhaps approached them more as an experiment, for the sheer pleasure of making a film. Later, short films became more professional, there were more sources of funding, and the people working on them started getting paid. Which is obviously great, but it also changes the relationship to these films… There's perhaps a little less freedom. That said, when I made * De Natura* , it was in a completely different context; I felt a greater sense of freedom, and I really enjoyed that. If I were to make more short films, I would try to make small short films within production systems that offer as much freedom as possible. It seems to me that this is also the advantage of a short film compared to a feature film, which is always in a more rigid production system." LH
Let's talk a little about your themes. What has always struck me when watching your films is the omnipresence of childhood. What is your relationship with childhood in cinema? Why do you use it to tell your stories?
"Depicting childhood allows me to more easily tell imaginary stories, fairy tales. My films are often coming-of-age journeys, with encounters and discoveries that help us grow. I love filming with children because I find them very different. They see things in a very inspiring way because they are constantly in the present, in the immediate moment. Emotions seem amplified with children." LH
What is the difference between directing a child's game and directing an adult's game?
"With children, it's not really about directing actors in the traditional sense. They aren't actors, precisely. I always look for children who have never acted in films before, who haven't been trained or molded. I describe the actions they need to take, I describe the situation a little, but everything is very much about immediacy. I try to give them as much freedom as possible. I'm not very interested in the psychology [of acting]. It depends on the actors, but some do want explanations to guide their performance. We'll ask them more to not be themselves. Children don't need that; they grasp things very easily." LH
"Your films offer unique universes, microcosms, each with its own distinct character. You create particularly visceral atmospheres, both visual and auditory. What does this mean to you? What role does atmosphere play in your films?
"What I love about cinema is entering a world, a world you live in for the duration of a film, and experiencing it through sensations and emotions. As a viewer, I love encountering films that resonate with me. That interests me more than the narrative itself—even though, of course, films always tell a story. These are narratives that unfold through details and emotions, more than through events. As a viewer, these are the films that stay with me the most. That's what I feel, and that's what I try to achieve." LH
From a more technical point of view, how do you approach this work on atmosphere? What kind of relationship do you have with your artistic teams?
"The work on atmosphere begins in pre-production, with the various artistic departments: cinematography, set design, costumes. It also starts with location scouting, in which I try to involve the production designer and the director of photography as early as possible, because locations have a certain feel to them. I'm interested in filming in real locations. We're often surprised; it brings ideas we might not have if we had to invent things. Then there are choices of colors, textures, and materials that we make with the entire artistic team. There are also lighting choices that correspond to the set design choices—I use very little artificial lighting. All of this contributes to creating these atmospheres.
Then there's a very important element—perhaps the most important—: sound. We work on it in post-production: during the picture editing, there are already directions, music choices; with the sound editor, we add sound elements, and so on. All of this contributes to creating these worlds. Sound plays a very important role. It's what resonates most deeply. But often unconsciously, which is perhaps why we sometimes find it difficult to talk about." LH
Interview By Niels Goy/September 22, 2025/Format Court