Pierre Filmon, a Frenchman conquering Bollywood | EUROtoday

Magic of relationship

Pierre Filmon explains that, on this matter, he merely utilized the recommendation given to him by two “bosses” of the Seventh Art: Claude Lelouch and James Ivory. Here once more, two decisive conferences… “The first recommended that I remain open to everything that arises during filming in order to be able to improvise. The second had given me two valuable instructions. The first: keep my European eye. The second: be careful not to offend anyone,” he says.

“Pierre’s life fascinates me, because it gives the feeling of being a succession of meetings with great figures of cinema. He has a gift for establishing a strong bond with rare personalities,” says actress Laëtitia Eïdo of him, who starred reverse Pierre Rochefort in his first characteristic movie, Between two trains.

Pierre Filmon is second to none with regards to instigating these conferences, notably on the festivals he recurrently attends. He thus maintained an excellent friendship with the cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond (1930-2016), director of images for legendary movies by John Boorman, Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese, Michael Cimino and Steven Spielberg. “Vilmos was my father of cinema,” slips the French filmmaker who devoted a phenomenal documentary to the Hungarian: Close Encounters with Vilmos Zsigmond in 2016.

However, nothing predisposed Pierre Filmon, born in Angers in 1970, to at some point changing into a director. It was in truth removed from the world of cinema that he grew up, despite the fact that his great-aunt, Marie-Anne Colson-Malleville (1892-1971), had labored alongside the filmmaker Germaine Dulac earlier than the warfare.

“My family is from Saumur. My father worked as a surveyor. My mother was a pianist. After starting language studies, I dropped everything in the second year to experience a love story in Hungary and then travel to China,” he confides.

A founding journey

This journey, made in 1992, marked his entry into cinema. It was in truth throughout an extended practice experience (a central motif in his work) that the boy started to movie. From this expertise he made a seminal quick movie, Blues of Chinanoticed at quite a few festivals. “A work which I realize today had more of an audience than I initially thought since a director like Thomas Lilti told me that he had seen it when it was released in 1996,” smiles Pierre Filmon.

Other notable quick movies will observe, together with, Silence, first (2002) dedicated to sexual violence towards youngsters based mostly on a screenplay by Marie Borrelli, but additionally a film-interview with the filmmaker, additionally photographer, Jerry Schatzberg. The job of director didn’t enable him to offer for the wants of his household, he labored for a very long time as a projectionist on the Le Grand Action cinema in 5^e district of the capital.

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Kangaroo of the day

This expertise, now behind him, allowed him to amass a uncommon cinematic tradition. Which at present finds expression in its personal movies. “Pierre likes to wink at the spectators. In The Great Departurehe asked me to shoot two short sequences as a tribute to the cinema of Satyajit Ray,” explains Dominique Colin. “The view taken out of the window, upon arrival in Benares, at the moment when the train passes the bridge which spans the Ganges, is the same as that which we see in Aparajito (The undefeated in VF), released in 1956,” confirms Pierre Filmon.

Now a 100% filmmaker, Pierre Filmon says he desires to make up for misplaced time by multiplying tasks because of the manufacturing firm he based. “It’s a way for me to gain independence and to be able to launch the films I want to make without having to depend on anyone, even if the search for a co-producer is often necessary,” he concludes.