遊樂場

Came back from my little break for that new article ! Here is the translation of Adèle and Aïssa’s interview for Libération. It’s a very long, but very interesting one. So i recommend to read it. There may be a lot of incoherencies so please tell me if something doesn’t make sense ! 

Aïssa Maïga and Adèle Haenel : «Finally there’s something political happening»

They stood up together at the César and have since been striving to invent a common front against all forms of discrimination. For “Libération”, actresses Adèle Haenel and Aïssa Maïga retrace the journey of generational awareness.

Some kind of symbol. A large mural, in tribute to George Floyd, a 46-year-old black American who died on 25 May when he was arrested by a white policeman, and to Adama Traoré, who died at the age of 24 on the floor of the “caserne de Persan” (Val-d'Oise) following an arrest in 2016, was painted at the beginning of the week on the façade of a building in the 10th arrondissement of Paris. Close by, the Adama Committee organized a press conference on Tuesday. Words, demands and the announcement of a new march to fight against police violence. It takes place this Saturday in the capital, from the Place de la République to the Place de l'Opéra. The organizers dream of seeing a huge crowd come together. This demonstration comes at the heart of a tense period. Young people are demanding answers and action, while many police officers feel that the Minister of the Interior is letting his troops down in the face of the scolding.

In the street, we will find associations, politicians and many people. Adèle Haenel and Aïssa Maïga will be there. Not a first. They were already present on  June 2nd at the rally in front of the Paris high court. The actresses didn’t really know each other before the last César ceremony, marked by the speech of one and the shattering departure of the other. Since then, they have never left each other. Both describe the moment as a “turning point”. The fights converge.

When the idea of a cross-exchange came on the table to put words to their commitments, they did not hesitate. On Thursday, in a roadstead near Belleville, Adèle Haenel arrived first, followed by Aïssa Maïga. They are not of the same generation, the journeys and paths are different. The styles too. The one who got up at the announcement of the prize awarded to Polanski goes up and down, talks with her body. The one who, at the same ceremony, invited to count the black people in the room appears calmer, stays seated on her chair, speaks in a low voice. Adèle Haenel and Aïssa Maïga complement each other.

From where are you speaking?

Adèle Haenel: I speak from my personal political background, rooted in feminism, a background that is shaken by the worldwide movement around police violence and by the French movement around the Adama Committee. I would say that taking charge of my own history has given me the ability to deal with other broader issues that do not immediately affect me. I’m talking about a kind of political awakening. This desire to show my support for the families of the victims, for the political movement against racism and police violence in France, and for the actors who take a stand. I’m thinking of Omar Sy, Camélia Jordana and you, Aïssa.

Aïssa Maïga: This intersectional awakening evoked by Adèle is a place where I have been for a long time without necessarily being able to name it. For a long time, the racial question in cinema was so pervasive in my life that it cannibalized everything else. I felt that it was less difficult to be a woman, in a world that discriminates women, than it was to be a black woman. The work done by Afrofeminists in France and abroad put the words in my mouth that I didn’t have because I didn’t have that heritage. I am speaking from a place that is on the move and that is not made up of certainties, that is made of interrogations, especially about the fact that I can implement changes on my own scale. And I’m also speaking from a place that is purely civic and is tinged with various influences. I didn’t grow up in a poor suburb, I didn’t live in financial precariousness, I come from a rather intellectual middle class, it gave me certain tools, and yet I haven’t escaped this very French thing, a soft racism, rarely seen but which is haunting… because it’s omnipresent.

Why did you get involved with the Adama Committee?

A.M.: Because this is a fight for justice. It was Assa Traoré who came to meet me during the release of the collective book Noire n'est pas mon métier (“Black is not my job”). I knew her from afar, I knew her struggle, and she appeared. The support became obvious and it has really taken shape in the last few months. I was immediately impressed by this woman, her quiet strength, and this ability to forge a bond, to think of her family drama in political terms. Her voice matters. She’s not just an icon: she allows a movement to emerge.

A.H.: For me, it’s even more recent, I had to go through a problem that was going through me, that involved my body in discrimination in order to mingle with other injustices. I was listening to what Assa Traoré was saying and I was struck by her determination and intelligence. But it is only very recently that I also became physically aware that I could not fail to support this woman and the whole fight against police violence and racism, in the same way that I am taking up the fight for feminism and against sexual violence. I can’t have it two-tiered.

On June 2nd, more than 20,000 people gathered in front of the High Court of Paris, at the request of the Adama Committee. An unprecedented turnout, with many young people, why?

A.M.: The Adama Committee saw very well the link between George Floyd’s drama and their own. The death of Adama Traoré, choked under three gendarmes, was materialized before our eyes with the unbearable images of Floyd’s death. The French youth who look at these images cannot fail to make the connection, it is obvious. There is also a form of accessible activism that is developing via social networks. Activists will involve others through simple, accessible sentences: if you are not a POC, you are still involved, it is your responsibility to listen and take an active part, at your level, in the fight for equality. There is also the idea that we need to establish a link between police violence, the racism that can be found in other social spaces, the issue of gender equality, the environment, and the urgency of dealing with these problems now. There is also a form of anxiety among young people: they are told that in fifty years’ time there will be no more water. And finally the feeling of injustice, which is omnipresent and linked to the circulation of images on social networks. Police violence follows one after the other, and this creates an accumulation effect. It is not just a dogmatic political vision, but a reality that is lived or perceived as real.

A.H.: There is a turning point in the effectiveness of the movement as well. This feeling carried by Assa Traoré that we are powerful. It’s not just ideas that go around the world, it’s ideas that make the world happen. It gives hope and responsibility to a whole generation.

During Aïssa’s speech at the Césars, in which she confronts the profession with the near-invisibility of actors, filmmakers and producers from French overseas territories and African and Asian immigrants in French cinema, you are in the room, Adèle. You don’t know each other yet. Do you understand her speech immediately?

A.H.: It’s obvious, but it’s not immediate, it takes a little time to understand the extent of the racist mechanism when you, yourself, haven’t been forced to see how it works. I was brought back to particular assignments, but not to this one. So it takes a long time before it becomes unbearable evidence. When Aïssa takes the floor, it’s courageous because the room is very cold and it’s making it even colder. I thought it was funny and I thought “finally, something political is happening”.

Did you both understand that people find it violent to count black people in the room, and even that they might find it paradoxical to split the audience?

A.M.: Counting isn’t splitting, it’s measuring the gap between us and equality. When it comes to inequality, to be blind to color is to be blind to the social burdens that come from our history and the imagination that flows from it. I am fighting for art and culture to deconstruct racial fictions. In our field, cinema, there is a tendency to believe that when a few exceptions appear, the problem of racial discrimination is solved. I do not think that my presence, that of Omar Sy, Ladj Ly or Frédéric Chau, Leïla Bekhti, for example, however gifted they may be, exonerates French cinema from an examination of conscience. There is always an over-representation of people perceived as non-white in roles with negative connotations - and it’s not me saying this, it’s the CSA, through its diversity barometer. There are still too few opportunities for younger people, who today in 2020 deplore what I deplored when I was starting out. Still too few non-whites behind the camera and almost no one in decision-making positions. I started this job when I was 20 years old. I am 45. A generation, not a few exceptions, should have risen. It hasn’t. And it’s unbearable as a citizen, a mother and an artist.

At the César ceremony, I deliberately used a inflammable symbol. If we refuse to measure differences in access to opportunities in terms of racial discrimination, perhaps we are accepting the status quo. Today, we need concrete action by decision-makers and numerical targets in order to measure progress. A few personal successes, however brilliant they may be, cannot justify the violence of large-scale unequal treatment.

A.H.: The substance of what Aïssa said to the César is relevant, it speaks to the moment, and being shocking has the virtue of awakening. The criticisms that followed were “I agree but”… In fact, it means that even when the substance is right, the form is never the right one. It’s a form of censorship, there are people who have the right to speak and others who don’t.

A.M.: Allowing oneself to express anger head-on is taboo because we are actresses and we are supposed to preserve the desire that others project on us. And also because it highlights the precarious nature of this profession: are you able to overcome your fear, to express your opinion, with the risk of losing something?

A.H.: From my point of view, that of a white woman - forgive me for putting myself in this position, but it’s still unfortunately an assignment - I see that when I spoke about what happened to me personally, I received a lot of support, especially from people who are not especially on our side. However, as soon as I spoke up, politically, to say that giving the prize to a rapist fleeing from justice was an insult, all of a sudden I was really overstepping what I was entitled to do, what I could interfere in…

Do you think there’s a “white privilege”?

A.M.: Words are so tricky…

A.H.: When Virginie Despentes uses the term “white privilege”, it’s a bit related to Aïssa’s gesture when she counts the black people in the room. It’s a question of pointing out, by calling up words that should be those of the past, the gap between the evolution of universalist ideals and the facts of manifest exclusion at work. Provocation points out this flaw and invites us to close it.

Is there state racism?

A.M.: I don’t know about “state” racism, it would have to be written into the laws to say that. The right word is systemic: it means that there is something that does not allow for real equality, something in the established rules that allows a small number of people to discriminate without being worried. What also raises the question is the inertia of the state in the face of the continuation of systemic inequalities.

From what you say, we are at a turning point in the struggle against racial, gender, social and other forms of discrimination…

A.M.: I felt the turning point in 2018 with #MeToo, Time’s Up, and when I saw all these women from such diverse backgrounds (in the streets) after Trump’s election. It was an image I had never seen before in my generation. It was in the United States, and yet something happened to me in France, because I had been dreaming of this convergence for a long time. I’m not here to defend my chapel. I’m not going to be satisfied with a breakthrough if blacks have more roles while Arabs and Asians are still in a degraded situation in French cinema. The convergence I’m talking about didn’t quite take place at the time of #MeToo, which quickly became a white women’s movement in my eyes. In French cinema, there is also the “50-50 for 2020” movement [collective for parity and inclusion founded in 2018, editor’s note] that I saw coming like the guerrilla movement we had been waiting for for a long time, pragmatic, quick, positively impatient, very constructive. The work done in favor of parity is colossal. On the other hand, I regret that diversity is the next program. But it cannot be the next program for me, that is the mistake. I’ve talked about it very openly, and frankly in a fairly relaxed way with some of them.

A.H.: Much more relaxed than I was, by the way!

A.M.: And then I said to myself that the battles are progressing on different levels and that we’re going to have to find some kind of alignment. The fight for women’s rights is not just a women’s issue, it’s a men’s issue, just as the fight against racism is not just about POC. And it wasn’t until 2020 and the murder of George Floyd that there were those voices, especially white voices, that said, “This is my problem too.” Including in France, where this awakening of consciousness is made possible by the work done by the families of victims of police violence.

A.H.: In my political journey so far, I had forgotten to understand the places where I am not just in a situation of domination. I am also, as a white woman who is not in a precarious position, in a dominant position in certain aspects. Understanding that, feeling that, is essential. My political agenda was focused on feminism, and I didn’t realize that it was implicitly white feminism, unintentionally excluding. What Aïssa says seems fundamental to me: the agenda that would order one cause after another is not conceivable and leads to inertia. It leagues us against each other in identity issues that are sterile, since they reiterate the terms of oppression. This is a major issue in the effectiveness of political struggles: how can we mobilize without reiterating the categorization we are fighting against? This implies understanding that there is a deep articulation between all systems of domination and that there is a need to defend these causes in a cross-cutting manner.

Aïssa’s speech on June 2nd, during the demonstration initiated by the Adama Committee, called for a fair, dignified and positive representation of minorities in the media. But who can judge what is dignified and fair? Only the ones who are affected ?

A.H.: Today, in France, female characters in films are implicitly white women: I have a much wider range of possible jobs than that offered to a black actress. But in my field of so-called universal women, very often, women are offered satellite roles around male characters. These roles take up what is considered to be the normal white female nature, of restraint and reification. What appears natural here is a cultural construction of identity that is done precisely through stories. This is one of the reasons why the political stakes of representations in the cinema are so important.

Is this a criterion for assessing or rejecting a work? What should be done with existing works that have been reassessed as problematic?

A.H.: Works must be recontextualized. They are not created out of nowhere, out of time. Let’s question them! That doesn’t mean that we stop watching them, but that we ask ourselves what their political substratum is and what they convey. Questioning representations is a sign of vitality. And that does not mean that we would no longer have the right to see these works.

A.M.: With this waltz of statues of slavery figures in the United States or in the French overseas departments at the moment, the citizens gives their answer. Either the work must be contextualized, in a museum or in a place with a historical explanatory note, or it must stand out.

Is it women, more willingly than men, who carry this convergence of fights ?

A.M.: I feel a change in the scale of our lives, a major turning point in the way we perceive each other and allow ourselves to hybridize in these battles. Regarding the massive presence of women from cinema in front of the High Court on June 2, I wonder. In particular about my own capacity to build bridges… while guaranteeing the visibility of the fights against discrimination against women or POC. How do we ensure that the fight against discrimination, for equality and equity, is as visible as the rest? I am not at all sure how to do this. But it has to be done. When, the day after the César, I received a text message from Adèle, even though we don’t know each other, and she writes to me to say “I heard you. I’m here. Let’s meet”, it can be as simple as that.

Why did you send that text?

A.H.: Because of the solitude in this room. And the brave gesture of saying what she said on stage. We’d met the same evening and maybe I hadn’t caught the moment, I was captivated by our own event… That is, what had happened after we’d, let’s say…, gone to get our coats a bit earlier in the dressing room… (Aïssa Maïga laughs) And I thought, let’s not forget the constructed gesture, the political intentionality of Aïssa in there. I wanted to get closer to her courage. So I think that we shouldn’t talk about masculinity by saying “men”, that we should consider masculinity as a field of organization of power with its own complexities, and its intersectional repercussions. I refer to Angela Davis’ book, Women, Race & Class, on the issue of the difficult articulation between the civil rights movement in the United States and the emerging white feminist movements where there was a lot of racism. Why don’t we think of ourselves as spontaneous and necessary allies between categories of discrimination, racial, social and gendered? We need to take the history of this division seriously in order to work on it and overcome it. As Assa Traoré does in an ultra-intelligent way when she says “Whatever your religion, your sexual orientation, wherever you come from, whatever your skin color”. It is an invitation to self-criticism of our own movement. This is my discovery at the beginning of this year: the self-criticism of my history as a white feminist.

When you get up during the César, is it thoughtful or impulsive?

A.H.: This award was a claim to the right to do whatever you want as long as you are at the top. That is to say: rich white men who don’t feel concerned when we talk about violence. What it means beyond sexual violence is that there are people to whom repressive laws do not apply. It’s as if the police and the laws shouldn’t act against them, but around them… And that’s what you feel in that moment in the room. What happened on César night was a dissolution of the status quo. Now it’s either you stay in the room or you don’t stay in the room.

A.M.: And it was important to be there at the César, because I read a lot about boycotting that evening, but for me there was no question of backing out. A boycott is not just staying at home behind your television, not being there without anyone really noticing. It was important to say that the home of cinema is also our home, our space, our place of expression. We are in a position to speak out and for that to have the virtue of provoking discussion. When that person wins that award, it’s the time of the turkey, where someone praises the rapist grandfather, when everyone knows. And you’re breathless, you can’t move, time becomes elastic, everything is extremely heavy, it’s unreal. You enter another dimension. And the fact that a person manages to regain possession of time, to become master of their time and master of their body by standing up and saying no, it put oxygen back in, it woke us up. Adèle and I looked at each other two or three times during the evening, we knew we were together. There was something like a physical experience. We boarded the ship together.

We’re spotting the allies.

A.M.: That’s right. And time returned to normal when Adèle, Céline Sciamma and others, including me, got up. It was a coherent political gesture in which many people recognized themselves.

Do you think that your political positions, formalized at the César, can have an impact on your career?

A.M.: The question is how do you break a family secret? Festen is one of my favorite films. (Laughs) I wasn’t born at the time of the 2020 César, it’s the result of a personal journey and a legacy. Others before me have spoken, for example Luc Saint-Eloy and Calixthe Beyala on the same issues at the Césars in 2000. When Canal + and the César invited me to come and give an award, I said “yes, but I want complete freedom”. Blowing up a family secret is a movement for self-liberation, it’s an essential meeting with yourself. Choosing to be on the side of silence, of the status quo and therefore of injustices with full knowledge of the facts is something I was quite incapable of doing. The consequences for one’s profession are not that one doesn’t care, but spitting out what one has to say is a top priority. The question of what it is going to cost behind it is resolved by the feeling of freeing the word, provoking debate, making a generational contribution to the fight for equality, which in essence concerns us all. I have an appointment with myself around 60, 65, the age when my children will be about the same age as I am today. There is something about transmission. I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror. I don’t want to tell myself that I haven’t taken advantage of my little privilege of being a POC exception in French cinema to the detriment of all those young people I meet on the street, who aren’t white and who say to me with fear in their stomachs, “Do you think I can still do this job?”

What about you, Adèle?

A.H.: The message that was sent to me very clearly by a casting director is that I will never work again. Obviously, this person was very sure of himself, since he wrote it in print capital letters about a dozen times. What do you say when you ask for respect and silence? They say, “Don’t speak out politically because it’s not your role”. But also: “Don’t take the lead artistically either because you’re an actress, you have to follow the genius of your director”. This whole structure is part of this culture where you shouldn’t listen to yourself but to submit. I don’t know what the consequences will be for my job. What is certain is that I will never regret it. We did something that night that freed the voices of a lot of people. That is worth much more than all the threats to my career, which in any case is always fragile, because it is a precarious environment. If I totally respected the rules and said, “Yes, yes, you have to separate the man from the artist”, that wouldn’t stop me from being able to get out of the game. It’s as much about inventing one’s life as trying to open up the future.

Christel Baras did an interesting interview on a podcast called Women in Motion where she talked about her job as a casting director. This was probably recorded mid-2019. And she talked about how she met Adèle and then Céline with Water Lilies but also about how she thought of Noémie for Portrait. So here are the parts where she talks about them !

Discovering Adèle when she was 11 years old

9:20 - 11:18 

It was back in winter 2000, with my assistant we were giving papers to kids after they were leaving school. But at this time I could go in a lot of schools and so I could observe kids in schools yards. But we found her brother first - where was it ? Montreuil ? - Yes Montreuil. And on that paper we would say that they should come with their friends or relatives and so one day Adèle came with her brother. She impressed me immediately.

 - Why ? 

Well she didn’t change much, she was very strong-willed, very clear about what she was saying, very determined. She had very strong opinions on the society we were living in, on the state of the world. Honestly i was “wow”. I was so in, I was so excited, it was crazy. She had that look.

- Are there really faces that make an impression on you immediately ?

Yes. But not only faces. That’s why we try to sit somewhere and talk with them and listen to them. - there’s also the personality then - Of course yes because while I’m talking with her I’m projecting myself, I’m thinking about my plan and all the interesting ideas. Sometimes the person has a stronger personality than what we were looking for. And this is where there is a lot of potential. This can give more depth to the story and the character. - More than what we would have hoped for ? - yeah definitely.

Reading the script of Water Lilies and meeting Céline

11:18 - 12:18 : 

- So Adèle Haenel will do this movie, Les Diables, and then a few years later, the producer Bénédicte Couvreur calls you and wants you to meet a young director who just got out of La Fémis, who wrote a screenplay called Water Lillies. And that script blows you away instantly. And this is Céline Sciamma. And here you say “wait a minute I know someone for that role”.

Yes. We don’t have the same recollection of this with Céline which is funny. She was talking about this with me last time and I didn’t remember that. From what I remember from all of this… well first I read the script and olalala I was so excited… And yeah at first I immediately knew I was going to look for Adèle, but I also immediately saw us at Cannes. The story was so amazing. And I used to run into Adèle in Montreuil, so I went to see her one day to tell her that there was an incredible film with an incredible character, with a fascinating director and that she had to meet Céline.

The audition process for Marianne in Portrait

12:18 - 13:40 :

- So tell me about the audition process of the last film of Céline Sciamma, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, what kind of actresses were you searching for that period film, but which is also very contemporary ? Do you talk together about the kind of femininity you are looking for ?

We mostly talked about the power of the feelings that had to be shared, that power, that sensation. With Céline we work a lot, we’re very focused. The audition is really about focusing for a long time and to only think about this. The first question was to know if the painter could be from a foreign country, if she could be a daughter of a Flemish or a Spanish painter from instance. She could have come from a lot of countries. We tried things. But eventually the accent was more of a problem than anything else. So Adèle was already going to be the lady who got out of the convent and we couldn’t fail with that couple. Quite quickly I thought about Noémie, whom I knew for quite a long time, since she started her career. But I felt bad I thought it was too easy, Noémie was already in my circle of actresses and all. But when we put them together side by side, it was incredible.

Women’s status in the french film industry 

13:45 - 18:30 

- Did you have the feeling, when you met those young women Adèle Haenel, Céline Sciamma, that it was also a new generation of women that was coming in the French film industry ?

Oh yes with Céline definitely. A very big encounter. - What’s different ? - Well first of all, what she tells, also the courage she has, the determination. It impressed me a lot at first. And it’s the script, the story the filmmaker wants to tell. And suddenly we’re with young women who are connected to the world we live in today. And also with what is happening today, which was coming for a long time and that existed for a long time  - you mean the empowerment and liberation of women ? - Yes of course, exactly. There was a kind of logic in that time of my career. It was extraordinary to meet Céline, it was like having a little sister.

- Is it different to work with male and female directors ? Is the relationship different ? What they’re asking for ?

Yes and it’s also about how we’re going to address things. How we are going to work on female and male characters. Now we also have a generation of male directors who move forward too.

- Who for instance ?

Well right now I think of Louis Garrel because I worked with him this year - For L’homme fidèle - Yes - That film has very interesting female characters  - Indeed. This is moving things forward. And there’s also the question of the period of time and also the behaviors. There are behaviors that we will always have to bear. - You mean behaviors that cross the line - Yeah of course, the machismo for instance. That will always happen. 

- But do you feel like it’s evolving or not ?

Yeah I still feel like there are less bad behaviors than before. A lot of men think about it and let their guard down. We have to put power in the right place. 

- And also, even if men and women think differently, and that women are now more supportive of each other, do you feel like women react differently too today ? 

So obviously translating 1,5 hour of Claire Mathon talking about very technical stuff about Portrait shooting isn’t in my range but here are some cool information she said about the film and its preparation. 

The castle 

Originally in the scenario, the castle didn’t have stairs, it was supposed to be a castle with only one floor. And there should have been only one corridor between the workshop and the kitchen. And all the ghost apparitions should have been in that long corridor. That was an important detail. But the castle they end up choosing was just too good and they didn’t find anything else that was better than this one so they find ways to make it work with the stairs. 

The different tests they did before the shooting 

The first big camera tests were made on September 19, 2018. They did tests with the actresses, they did outdoor tests. They tested the light, the candle lights. They filmed the burning painting, and they also did makeup tests etc. But they did all of that in another castle that they thought would be the one for the film. But then they came back to the first castle that they liked much more.

The second big test day was on October 5, with new makeup tests because the makeup artist wasn’t happy with the first results the first time. They tested again the light and what kind of light sources they would use etc. And there was also Noémie there to do those tests so they could film the light on her face. And they also filmed Adèle with the green dress because back in September the dress wasn’t ready yet so they couldn’t test how to film the dress. 

The final day of preparation was on October 10. They went to a swimming pool in Paris with Noémie to see how they would film her scene in the water at the beginning of the film. 

They started filming on October 15. And they filmed 2 weeks in Brittany to film all the exterior scenes and the abortion scene. And then they went back to Paris to film all the scenes in the castle, the museum and the theater. 

The references/ inspirations for the film and the paintings

Here are some paintings they had in mind when they thought about the film and the paintings they wanted to do 

Mélancolie, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot  (1860) : it wasn’t the right period of time but it was an intimate portrait and they liked the simplicity of it, of the background.

Draughtsman, Jean Siméon Charbin (1737) : They talked a lot about his paintings, how modern it looked. And there was a mixture of precision and details but at the same time it wasn’t too precise either.

Portrait d'Émilie Sériziat et son fils, Jacques Louis David (1795) : It inspired the last painting. There’s again that mixture of precision, the finesse of the dress design, the richness of colors, the shades , but also a smoothness on the skin’s work etc.

For film references : 

Autumn Sonata, Ingrid Bergman (1978)

Persona, Ingrid Bergman (1966)

How she got into the project : 

Céline was already interested with working with Claire for Tomboy in 2011 and she called her back then but it didn’t happen, it wasn’t the right time yet. But for Portrait Céline really wanted to work with her, it was one of her stronger desire for that film. And the producer Bénédicte also knew Claire and wanted to work with her too.

The work on the paint and paintings with Hélène Delmaire 

Hélène started working on her workshop in Lille before the shooting. Céline and Claire would go to Lille to check her work and see her paint. And then Hélène moved in next to the castle to keep working and to be filmed. Claire took photos of Adèle so she could paint from those pictures. And for the Héloïse/p28 painting, they thought about asking another painter to do it since it wasn’t Marianne who did that one in the film. And they also thought about painting over a picture so it would be quicker to paint. But the painting looked too real, too perfect and didn’t have the small defaults real portraits have so they also gave up on that idea. 

[Marie Claire released a pretty big interview with Marine Turchi, the reporter who did the investigation on Adèle’s sexual assault case. So i translated the parts of the interview that talked about the case. The whole interview is very interesting, you can see how professional and thorough Marine Turchi really is. She was the youngest journalist on the team when Mediapart started in 2008, and before she started investigating sexual assault cases in 2017, she was, and still is, writing about the french far right party, which is also talked about in this article. So I can only recommend you to read the whole interview if you can !]

Marie Claire article : “Marine Turchi, the one who changed Adèle Haenel’s life”

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Marine Turchi, the one Adèle Haenel trusts

Marine Turchi, 37, journalist in Mediapart, is one of those who demonstrate that impunity is no longer possible. By releasing the Adèle Haenel case, she signed one of the most outstanding investigations of recent years. It was on Sunday November 3, 2019, at 7 pm; Mediapart posted an article entitled “French actress Adèle Haenel accuses filmmaker of ‘sexual harassment’ when a minor French actress Adèle Haenel accuses filmmaker of 'sexual harassment’ when a minor”.

It’s long, very long - three times the size of what you’re used to read. With “surgical” precision, Marine Turchi carries out seven months of investigation, gives the floor to more than thirty people, accumulates dates, testimonies, extracts from letters and notebooks.

From this ultra-detailed millefeuille, the following emerges: from 2001, and for three years, Christophe Ruggia, a filmmaker then aged 36, allegedly sexually assaulted and harassed Adèle Haenel, a 12-year-old debutante actress.

The day after the article was published, Adèle Haenel was invited by Mediapart: a special live broadcast, free (unlike the website, which is a pay-per use site), hosted by the boss and co-founder Edwy Plenel and by Marine Turchi. The double cesarized actress tells us today: “I was a bit nervous before the show. I wanted to have a think about all this. I had carefully prepared for it. At worst, if the words wouldn’t come out, I thought there would still be Marine’s article, which was extremely strong.” But she manages to talk. She speaks to every soul, touches every heart.

Vibrant with contained anger, sensitive and without giving in, Adèle Haenel suddenly gives a voice, a face, a body to those who no longer want to keep quiet. She says she is expressing herself to "put the world back in the right direction”, calling for an awareness of society as a whole.

It’s a deflagration. The case is unique because of its repercussions, because of the very status of the accuser, a “powerful” woman, who’s aware of her power, but the case is also sadly ordinary in the way it reveals violence against women and minors. It precedes the Matzneff case and the Abitbol case, comes after the Denis Baupin or Roman Polanski cases, and in parallel with those involving Luc Besson, Tariq Ramadan or Gérald Darmanin

It seems endless. It is, and it’s also for this reason that Marine Turchi accepted the appointment with Marie Claire. “Because sexual violence is a huge public health problem.”

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The meeting between Adèle Haenel and Marine Turchi

[…]

Adèle Haenel and Marine Turchi meet in April 2019, during a party that brings together "about a hundred people”: at the end of the evening, by chance, they are a few women who find themselves talking. Very quickly, they tackle the #MeToo issue.

Adèle Haenel recalls: “It was the second time in a few months that I heard women’s groups tell each other stories of sexual assault. It was crazy. Everybody had one… As for me, I was trying to do something about it. I felt it was necessary to speak out, given the total impunity of my abuser who was about to make a film with teenagers again, using the same character names as Les Diables”

That evening, one of the women in the small group said that Marine Turchi is a journalist, that she investigates sexual violence cases. Two days later, Marine Turchi and Adele Haenel met again. Two long interviews, then the actress finds letters from Ruggia, her own notebooks, gives names of people to call. The investigation can begin, on a long-term basis. With hindsight, Adèle Haenel thinks that ”Marine Turchi is not affected, she doesn’t let herself be carried away by sudden emotions or hot reactions. On the contrary, she is meticulous, lucid and courageous. And even when the wind is blowing hard, she remains calm“.

The turning point in the dossier has a date: June 2019. Marine Turchi contacted Christophe Ruggia’s former girlfriend, director Mona Achache, and told her: ”I’m calling you about accusations of sexual violence against Christophe Ruggia.“ A “long blank” follows. Then Mona Achache answers by pronouncing, "the first”, the name of Adèle Haenel. And like about thirty other people, the director agreed to speak openly. The memories of some and the anecdotes of others give credence to the actress’s words.

It’s still necessary to collect the testimony of Christophe Ruggia - the “adversarial procedure” in Mediapart language, the testimony of the defendant. We are then in October 2019. Marine Turchi tries, on several occasions, to contact the filmmaker. “I really wanted him to answer me. Adversarial is not a gimmick to make things look pretty. It’s crucial to get the version of the people involved, and besides, it strengthens the article. »

But Ruggia remains mute. She ends up sending him detailed questions about the case, while giving him a helping hand on the theme: ”Could you have had an attitude, gestures, of which you would not have measured the consequences?” And what if he had recognized tendentious behavior or even sexual assault? “Of course I would have included it in the article! We would have had her own path, how to go from silence to words; and on the other hand, what goes on in the mind of the defendant.” Except that the silence persists. Eventually, Christophe Ruggia briefly lets his lawyers know that he denies any “harassment” or “touching” - which will be included in the article.

Then, on November 6, three days after the publication of the investigation, the filmmaker sent a right of reply to Mediapart, “which was immediately published”: he acknowledges a “hold” on the actress but continues to refute the sexual assaults.

The same day, however, the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office opened a preliminary investigation. Shortly afterwards, Adèle Haenel, who had initially dismissed the idea, filed a complaint. “I am aware that I have benefited from a journalistic investigation that most women victims of violence will not have“ she told Marie Claire. “Therefore, following the opening of the investigation by the public prosecutor’s office and in order to move things forward, I had to file a complaint. Because what is left for women who are not in the media space, if not justice? »

More than 400 reports after broadcasting Adèle Haenel’s testimony

Since November, Marine Turchi has been receiving a large number of reports of sexual violence - more than 400 emails, letters, or alerts via social networks. All of them say something clicked after the speech of Adèle Haenel, all of them evoke an immense pain, the difficulty to speak against the "powerful”, to speak at all. Some of these stories have triggered ongoing investigations.

Only some of them, because a choice is made within the Mediapart editorial staff, in a collegial manner, according to multiple, necessarily subjective criteria, among which: the date of the cases, the number of victims, the number of witnesses ready to speak, the degree of notoriety of the people who are accused… “The worst thing,“ says Marine Turchi, ”is not the cases we take; it’s the ones we won’t take. It’s seeing the injustice and impunity that can persist. It’s to see that justice sometimes fails to deal with these cases. It’s to tell people who are in pain that we will not be able to deal with their case.”

People in pain… But how is she? Are we followed by psychologists, when we’re so immersed in these files? “No, I’m fine. You learn a lot.”

Adèle herself revealed it in the live interview with Mediapart. She explained how her father was against her speaking out about the whole story and so she wrote him a letter back in April to make him understand why she had decided to do so, and afterwards he changed his mind and supported her (he is one of the several people interviewed in the article written about Adèle).

She read the whole letter during the interview, it was extremely powerful and moving. I cannot gif it all because apart from being too long it’s very emotional and maybe the hardest thing to watch in an already hard to watch interview, but I can transcribe here what she read because I know a lot of people won’t watch a 1 hr long interview on such a sensitive topic but maybe they’re interested in knowing what she said. Please be advised that child abuse is mentioned so read at your own discretion.

“My dear father, 

I will try to explain things clearly. This matter goes back 18 years. If I waited this long to expose the events, it’s because of a number of things which made talking impossible for a long time, and today a whole lot of other things which make remaining silent insufferable. What made it impossible to speak out was, among other things, the fact that Christophe was someone nice, that he had done so much for me, and that without him I would be nothing. What I consider today to be clearly pedophilia and harassment, I forced myself at the time to think it was love. 

How can I tell you? Deep inside me, I always knew that something wasn’t right, that it was not love, and when I went to his home I felt so dirty that I wanted to die. I found him disgusting, but i felt indebted to him because he did so much for me. He said incessantly to me, “It’s not the same with us, others wouldn’t be able to understand.” He would always go about things in the same way. He’d come close up to me, he’d kiss me and begin caressing me. I would get up, he would follow me, and I would end up sitting on the footrest which was so small he couldn’t come close to me. He didn’t want to look at things in the eyes. This is to say, he couldn’t slap me and physically force me, because in that case he wouldn’t have been able to avoid seeing himself for what he is. That’s to say, a 40 years old man, who abused a 12, 13 and 14 years old. Do you understand? It’s not out of respect for the child I was that he didn’t carry through with the act, it was because of fear of having to face himself. 

I felt so dirty at the time, I had so much shame, that I didn’t want to talk about it to anyone. Silence is never without violence. Silence is an immense violence. You probably remember that time, of the violence I went through alone, and you probably remember too that at that time I cut off contacts with everyone. I left my agent, I stopped the casting sessions, I myself abandoned the idea of doing cinema. I decided to survive and go off on my own rather than staying. Who then came to see me to help me, for my wellbeing, for my career? All the kind consideration of Christophe didn’t prevent him from turning away from me and to pursue his political commitment in favor of children, his life in the world of cinema, as if nothing had happened. I disappeared, and with me disappeared the risk of being caught one day for his dirty affair. What a pity for him that one day, at the end of a party, I bumped again into Christel Baras, who subsequently cast me for ‘Water Lilies’, and I came back. Fragile, but I came back. As of that moment, and in large part thanks to meeting Céline (Sciamma), who is the most important encounter of my life and my career, sharpened by a desire for revenge, I became a blade, stronger, to the point of becoming what I am today. I’m talking of social status. I am socially powerful now, and Christophe has only become weaker. But this inversion of the balance of power is in itself insufficient to fight against the balance of power imprinted from early adolescence. Despite that, I still continued to be afraid. Concretely, that means the heart beating fast, the hands sweating, the thoughts becoming clouded. Fear, notably, during the rare times in which I’ve found myself in Christophe’s presence. 

To tell you something else, what you thought was 18 years of silence, I crossed it feeling like being gagged, with lots of false truths that suited everyone. For example, very often I found myself in front of people, even people I love very much, who, without me speaking about anything concerning this matter, would say to me, “No, Christophe is a good person.” What I want to say is that, from what I’m telling you in part in this email, you can imagine that “a good person” is not exactly a proper description of Christophe. I want to tell you another thing. The remaining reasons for which I’ve made the decision to speak out are a documentary about Michael Jackson called ‘Leaving Neverland’, and also that I learned by chance that Christophe has launched a casting for a new film, whose main characters are called Chloé and Joseph, like in ‘The Devils’. Perhaps you view this detail as just a small matter, but to me it’s enormous. It means he completely denies my story. If I’m talking about it to Mediapart, after having envisaged other possibilities, it’s because the journalist is going to lead a thorough investigation. You seem to think that I’m trying to seek attention with these revelations, or that I’m trying to drag my psychoanalysis into the public arena. You’re missing the point. If I’m speaking out, it’s not to burn Christophe. It’s to put the world back on the right track, a world which is upside down in lies. If I’m speaking, it’s so the torturers stop strutting around and are forced to face things. If I’m speaking, it’s so that shame switches sides. If I’m speaking, it’s so that this exploitation of future children, of women, ceases, so that there is no longer the possibility of double-talk. You speak to me of forgiveness, but allow me ask you, has someone asked for forgiveness? Forgiveness for what? I understand your decision not to talk, it’s entirely your right. As for me, I think that if we do things together, we can do something really good, which would consist of looking clearly at our past, which came close to destroying me, destroying us, and to make it a gesture of love. 

Forgiving Christophe is not my main concern. In any case, he’s the only one who could offer forgiveness to himself. My main concern is to live my life in the most alive manner as can be, with, around me, my family and the people I love, and who are themselves the most alive as can be.”

“Wanderer above the Sea of Fog” Caspar David Friedrich, 1818

“Miranda” John William Waterhouse, 1875

“Ampio Orizzonte” Ettore Tito, 1910

“Portrait of a heart” Christian Schloe, 2013

“Nymphs dancing to Pan’s flute” Joseph Tomanek, 1920

“Self-Portrait” Elizabeth Nourse, 1892

“Portrait of Mrs. Claude and Miss Virginia Leigh” Philip Alexius de Laszlo, 1933

“Orpheus and Eurydice” Edward Poynter, 1862

Noémie Merlant in Konbini “Fast Life” interview 

*laughing* Everybody is laughing, so it’s hard.

When and where were you born ?

November 27th, 1988 in Paris.

What was your first word ?

« Catu », it was the name of my teddy bear.

What’s your origins ?

My mom is from Brittany and my dad is from Vendée.

What’s your parents’ jobs ?

My dad was a real estate agent, and my mom too.

What was your passion when you were a kid ?

I loved to sing Céline Dion, I still love to sing Céline Dion. *laugh*

What did you do after school ?

Bah I was singing Céline Dion. *laugh*

Did you have posters in your room ?

Not Céline Dion but Titanic.

What’s the first film you saw in theater ?

Titanic. We really struggled to find a seat, with my sister, in the small local cinema theater… Bah Céline Dion sings in it so.

Do you remember your first concert ?

I went to see Starmania when I was little. *laughs quite embarrassedly*

What kind of diploma do you have ?

I have the baccalauréat ES (economic and sciences high school diploma. I loved classes so I don’t know I told myself that I was going to do a business school and then I swerved. It’s my dad who told me « oh so you’re sur you want to do more studies » I don’t know why he told me that, maybe because he didn’t do more studies himself. So he told me to take a year off and to try new things. So with that I really got lucky.

When did you decide you wanted to be an actress ?

I had that passion for acting right away but it’s only in my 3rd and last year of drama school that I told myself that I was going to try to do it as my actual job. To do whatever I need to to make it my job, and not just some theater night classes.

What did modeling bring you ?

It might have helped me with being confortable in front of a camera. But it’s not a job that I liked a lot. I think it’s a quite toxic job. Maybe it was just my own experience. But I’m only realizing now that I was really a piece of meat.

Do you remember your first audition ?

It was for L’orpheline avec en plus un bras en moins, which was my first film. And the audition was with the director, Jacques Richard. I’m still nervous when I audition by the way. Auditions and interviews aren’t my strength.

What do you want to remember from filming Portrait of a Lady on Fire ?

The concept of muse and the fact that there’s no muse. It’s only collaborators. There’s no objects but only subjects in the creation of art, whether it’s a painting or a film.

And what is inspiring you ?

Well there’s Céline Dion but …. *laugh* All the Célines, the Célines are very present in my artistic life.

Between acting and directing, what would you choose ?

But why do we need to choose ? I’m unable to choose because it’s too things different and complementary. When I direct I’m looking for other things. When I act, I’m entering, sharing and working around the vision of a director. That shooting, that film with Céline.. It made me realize that I have things to say and I can’t always tell those things through a character, so I’m gonna try to direct a film.

What was the idea behind your first short film ?

My friend at that time was a lot on snapchat and all day when she was at work she would send me photos with that deer filter. And so one day I told her as a joke « stop that, you’re gonna be stuck ». And that happened at the same time when I wanted to try that Nikon Film Festival. And I don’t know I thought « well that could be an idea ».

What were you doing before being here ?

Another interview.

What are you doing after ?

Going to the edit room for a film I directed.

Can you tell us more about it ?

Céline explains the importance of the reading scene, better known as the “Netflix and chill” scene

(Can’t thank you enough @bereaving​ for all you work and patience… you’re a true hero)

“This sequence came very late in the writing process of the script, almost the last writing effort. I was looking, above all, for a scene of complicity around a fiction for the three characters, really like a Netflix and chill kind of scene. With a fiction that has a very strong climax and where there’s a matter of debate. Because I wanted to see them exchange, to give hypotheses on fiction, on issues of fiction.”

“It’s also part of the process of a feminist re-reading of mythology/myths. And typically the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is a myth that has been re-read by many feminists because it’s a myth that shows the male gaze as a killer gaze. Or at least a militant, conditioning gaze. First, it was about restoring the myth in the present through the act of reading and listening, and then in the analysis.”

“But I had a kind of innocence when summoning this myth. I was absolutely not aware of the way in which it was actually going to unfold in the story. To allow the link between the two great frames of the film that are the present of a love and the memory of love.”

“The future appearances of Héloïse as a ghost are the future or past marks of this myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.”

* Dying a second time, she did not complain *

“To die twice, a woman’s destiny.” “The pleasure of filming women thinking, debating, but also the pleasure of the validity of the preciousness of all hypotheses. No one is right and no one is wrong. Marianne puts forward a hypothesis which resembles her. To make the poet’s choice. And the debate will be taken further.”

* Perhaps she was the one who said: “turn around” *

“The myth from Eurydice’s point of view. Love as admiration, like the way you’re impressed by someone.“

It’s like our time together is just ours. It’s our own creation.  It must be like I’m in your dream, and you in mine, or something.