PROFILES Emmanuelle Antille Avanti


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Installation artist Emmanuelle Antille describes her first theatrical feature, Zurich International Competition entry Avanti, as “a road-trip love story between a mother and a daughter who are learning to accept each other”. Acclaimed actress Hanna


Schygulla stars as the misunderstood mother with psychiatric problems, alongside newcomer Nina Meurisse, Miou- Miou and Jean-Pierre Gos. The French-language Swiss-


Belgian co-production had its world premiere last night and screens again on Monday and on Sunday September 30. Filmcoopi will release the film in Switzerland.


How did Avanti come together? I am a video artist, primarily. In my artwork I’m interested in exploring the bonds between people within a community or a family, so I was interested to make a longer format film exploring that subject. I started working on the script five years ago and we shot last spring in Switzerland. We did the post in Belgium. Because Avanti combines several shooting formats — including Super 8, archive and video — that


took around six months. The film is a Swiss-Belgian co-production, between Box Productions and Versus Production. It was classically financed, through a combination of local Swiss government funding, TV and regional funds.


You have a nice blend of experience and youth in the cast. How did that come about? I had wanted to cast Hanna from the beginning. I needed a very special actress to play the mother. The character is in her own world but at the same time I wanted someone who could portray mental illness in a subtle, non-caricatured and diverse way. I was touched and blessed that Hanna wanted to do it. From there, we built the family around her. I’ve previously worked with non-actors so I also wanted to maintain some of that. We did a scene in a bikers’ bar, for example, in which we cast real-life bikers.


What was the biggest challenge? This was the first time I have directed professional actors so it was a challenge to find the right words for each one to express my ideas. It’s about developing a


Emmanuelle Antille


different language with each one. This was also the first time I’ve worked on this scale.


What’s next? I’ve just finished shooting a large video installation for a Swiss museum. That should be ready for next year. I’m also thinking about the next feature. Now that I have the film-making bug, I suppose I’ll be contaminated forever. Andreas Wiseman


Avanti


Gabriela Pichler Eat Sleep Die


You once worked in a factory when you were younger. Did that experience help with how you approached this story? Yes, of course. At that time I was very far away from film-making, and just dreaming about it. So from an early point I wanted to make a film out of my perspective, the girl standing by the assembly line packing stuff that other people will eat — in my case, cookies in paper boxes.


Gabriela Pichler Eat Sleep Die


Swedish director Gabriela Pichler makes her feature debut with Eat Sleep Die (Ata Sova Do) about a young Eastern European immigrant in Sweden who loses her job in a factory and is forced to make tough decisions about her future and her family. After being lauded in Venice (where it won the Critics’ Week audience prize) and Toronto, the film screens in Zurich today, Thursday and Saturday.


So much of this film is dependent on your lead actress. How did you find Nermina Lukac and how did you know that she was right for the role? I knew from the first line I wrote that the person we needed to find for the main role would have to be something really special. To be able to identify with the character and her struggles, as well as feeling what kind of story I would like to tell, how the character talks and walks, and like me going in and out of different cultural identities. We looked for her for about 10 to 12 months, and my casting director Lotta Forsblad came in very early in


the process, before I even had a script. I knew that without the perfectly cast main actress the film would be nothing. One day Lotta got a name and number that led to a girl who was said to have been a bit of a tomboy when she was a teenager. So Lotta called her, asking her if she would be interested in auditioning. She came with an elegant scarf around her shoulders and feminine clothes, and I was thinking, “Oh God...”. But then she knocked us out completely.


Many critics have compared your style to the Dardennes. Are they an inspiration to you? There are many different directors who have inspired me. Yes, among them are the Dardenne brothers. But also Claire Denis, Wong Kar Wai, and Milos Forman are big inspirations.


Sweden is a focus country for Zurich this year, what do you think is exciting about Swedish film-making at the moment? The new up-and-coming directors with new stories to tell. Wendy Mitchell


September 23-25, 2012 Screen International at the Zurich Film Festival 5 n


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