From the very first idea of the film at the beginning of the year 2016 up to finalise the movie end of October 2019, it was a long way to go. I started the film on my own, compiling pictures around Uzès every time something seemed to be connected to the theme of gentrification. In late summer Michel Lafont, the actor playing the character of Alphonse joined the adventure and I was very happy to have him with me. He was born in the county of Uzès and as a street theatre artist, he is not afraid to get in contact with complete strangers. We shot two weeks together, helped by Nico Verhaeghe, a sound engineer, when he had some free moments. He is the one, who saved all the bad sounds I recorded myself during the shooting in the post-production and I think he is one of the best you can get for that kind of job, specially if you know that he is not a technician but a sound artist and musician.
After this, I met a production company that saw the rushes and promised me to find a real budget for the realisation. They asked me to stop filming, the time to find the money. So I waited for one and a half year – and nothing happened.
It was a desperate situation and the only way to go on, was to take back the film in my hands. This is one of the moments where only friends can give you the courage. And so it was. My partner Hélène pushed me forwards to launch a crowd-funding campaign and it worked out. The budget of the film raised up to 5000 € and once you have some little money, others join you. To be clear , the final budget was nothing to make a movie. Specially when as a private person you are engaged to fight social injustice and you find yourself in a situation to ask everyone working for free or just for a symbolic amount. But this is another topic.
So at November 2018, we blocked another two weeks where we finished the shooting with a lot of helping hands and I just can say thank you to all the people who believed in the project, it was a kind of miracle. With Arthur Bourbon and Francis Tesorio, I had two assistants, who not helped me only with the organisation of the film, but they did all the technical constructions as well as the scenography with the help of Francis wife, Iva Tesorio, a great painter and artist. Also I want to mention Annie Rabasa, who cocked and took care of us all. With a micro budget, she did the impossible.
I started editing by myself in December. It was not what I wanted, but once again, it was due to our budget. In February 2019 Clément Baratte joined the film, accepting our financial conditions and worked as the editor of the film. This was also one of those things, where you can just say: Thank you! Clément is an independent filmmaker and he had the distance to take the film in his hands and give him the turnaround only very good editors are able to do. He also did the colours correction in the studio of Tënk, a indy online platform, up in the mountains of Ardèche, that welcomed our team.
At the beginning, I used the music of Bernhard Herrmann, the compositor of most of Hitchcock’s films and one of the most famous film composers in cinema history. To ask the rights of only one of his songs costs more than the total budget of the film. Once again Fortuna was with us.
With JC Quilez, Rémi Balmassière and Florian Duclaye, three musicians living around Uzès, the film got all the support it needed. When I replaced the music of Herrmann by their works, I never had the feeling to do a downgrade. They did a fantastic job. With Tumi de la Cruz they did the mixing of the music and all I can say is : Chapeau les artistes!
The final sound mixing of the film took place in Montreuil. Raphaël Prat had just the perfect ears and is was a delight to have him for the film.
The DCP (the support for streaming the film in movie theatres) was done by Lilian Lefranc in South of France again. I worked with him already on another small project and I was glad to meet him again. It’s good to know that you can trust someone blindly.
Today the film exists, due to all the positive energy and I’m very proud of that. To see different people coming together and working in front or behind the camera because they believed in the film and its topic, is a very strong experience. And I hope the movie will travel a lot and can share this energy with its spectators.