meet me in montauk.

“I just think that most of the time directors don’t know what they talk about when they talk about sex. They’re just like (imitating a male grunting voice) ‘uhhh let’s do like- uhh…’ They don’t know.” (x)

France probably has more female film-makers than anywhere else in the world, yet French cinema still abounds with stereotyped female roles. Is that a problem for you? I try not to make those films. Recycling cliches is a sign that a film lacks freedom, lacks courage. I like films that are in revolt against the previous generation. It’s a question of saying: “This is the world we live in, this is how it is” – and maybe saying it in a way that’s like screaming out loud. Just following the same old codes is a kind of submission. It’s like, “Thanks for leaving the world exactly as it is so I can carry on telling the same old boring stories.”

“There is this taboo of the rule of silence in cinema, which you are helping to put an end to, and there is what is at the heart of your story, the taboo of ‘paedophilia’, which we prefer to call ‘paedo-criminality’. It has an echo because what has troubled and divided the cinema industry at the beginning of the MeToo movement in France is the case of the filmmaker Roman Polanski.”