Tell us about Love Streams agnès b. Productions and your editorial line?
FXF: Originally, agnès b. set up her film production arm Love Streams some 13 years ago to help filmmaker Gaspard Noé finalise the financing of his film Seul contre tous. For a long time, we've been perceived as a company able to top up the financing of films by emerging French and/or foreign filmmakers.
In 2004 we changed from being a pure co-financing partner to a fully-fledged production company, initiating our own projects. We produce not only features but also documentaries and video art as agnès has an art gallery in Paris and her own contemporary art collection. Our idea is to find a balance between defending innovating auteur films, and dealing with the reality of the market. It's harder and harder, especially if you're not involved in distribution.
François-Xavier, you have worked closely on Rare Exports, and you Charles-Marie, on Everything Will be Fine. Can each one of you tell me how you got and involved and what attracted you to the projects?
FXF: It was actually the head of Arte France Cinema Michel Reilhac who told me about Rare Exports, following the film's selection at Rotterdam's CineMart 2009. I immediately fell in love with the project. We decided to co-produce it and got the backing from Arte Cinema and French Canal+. In Cannes 2009 and Berlin 2010, I worked closely on the film with the Finnish producer Petri Jokiranta in a very fair and friendly relation. For me, the film is a masterpiece. I've never been as impressed by a first feature film before.
CMA: Everything Will be Fine was brought to us by the French investment company Back Up Films who also got involved in the financing. I had been impressed by Boe's previous film Reconstruction and liked the script. The film has a rare intense quality in the writing and in the images. In his typical way, Boe masterfully blurs the limits between reality and fiction, without ever loosing the audience. I'm sure the film will make waves in Cannes.
The relationship with Alphaville Pictures Copenhagen was also excellent. We had a true dialogue and collaboration and I would be delighted to work with them again.
Have these two experiences opened your appetite for Nordic films?
CMA: I love the well-established Susanne Bier, Roy Andersson, Aki Kaurismäki, Bent Hamer and there also seems to be talented newcomers such as Ola Simonsson and Johannes Stjärne Nilsson (Sound of Noise).
FXF: Definitely. We've already signed up for the next Jalmari Helander. Personally I knew the masters of Scandinavian cinema like Ingmar Bergman as well as Aki Kaurismäki of whom I'm a big fan. But with Rare Exports, I've realised that films from Northern Europe have a very distinctive style, a rare visual density, a different relationship with the light, often mixed with dark humour and a strong narrative. In France, producers have been focusing recently on co-producing films from South America. Perhaps it's time to look close to us, up North.