A few days before the César Awards ceremony in France, Quebec director Monia Chokri is still surprised to be nominated in the Best Foreign Film category alongside film industry giants such as Christopher Nolan and Wim Wenders.
His work Simple Comme Sylvain, which stars Magalie Lépine-Blondeau and Pierre-Yves Cardinal, stood out in France, despite the impressive selection of big-budget foreign films shown in cinemas last year.
On Friday, during the high fair of French cinema, it will therefore be in competition with Oppenheimer (Nolan), Perfect Days (Wenders), Fallen Leaves (Aki Kaurismäki) and Kidnapped (Marco Bellocchio).
I knew the film was still popular in France […], but it is always a surprise, especially because we are a film with a small economy compared to many other foreign films such as Barbie, all American films and those nominated in Cannes. “So it's very flattering, I'm very, very happy,” Monia Chokri said in an interview on Sunday's Tout Terrain show on ICI Premiere.
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Pierre-Yves Cardinal and Magalie Lépine-Blondeau in “Simple as Sylvain”.
Photo: Courtesy of Immina Films
This success surprises him a little given the theme of his film, which deals with love and social classes. There we meet Sophia, a philosophy professor who falls madly in love with Sylvain, a carpenter with whom she has little in common.
I had the impression that I was working on a topic that was in vain, namely love and a spontaneous meeting. Over the course of the lectures and the messages I received, I realized that it is good for people to see a film in which there is a lot of tenderness. This particularly surprised me [le fait de] See how much people need tenderness and love today.
Feminist view
Monia Chokri does not believe that the color and sensitivity of Simple comme Sylvain can be explained by her being a female director. She prefers to describe the way she sees her protagonists, especially Sophia, as feminist.
Men are just as capable of filming women. And some women don't necessarily film women well because they're still doing it within a patriarchal image system. I don't know if it's a question of gender rather than awakening consciousness.
The issue of patriarchy is expected to be raised at Friday's ceremony as the French film industry is rocked by a wave of allegations of…sexual assault. Those who target Gérard Depardieu deeply divide members of the artistic community.
For her part, Monia Chokri has chosen her side well and doesn't hesitate to say so loud and clear.
I really admire the courage of women, especially Charlotte [Arnould], who was the first to denounce Gérard Depardieu. I welcome this movement, more recently Anna Mouglalis, Isild le Besco, Judith Godrèche, Judith Chemla. These are all women in the cinema who said “stop” and who are sometimes still ridiculed, said the director from Quebec.
But I think that's changing. The resistance fighters are the old guard. We see it in those who signed the open letter in defense of Gérard Depardieu and then retracted half of it. I think that the resistance comes from a reactionary group that does not want to see change and does not understand the issues of gender and equality between men and women.
In her opinion, the new guard is ready to take their place, “breathe new life into French cinema” and shake up the order established by their predecessors.
I have the impression that this is moving in a direction where we will achieve more and more a form of equality and seriousness, especially in denouncing #MeToo acts.
Based on the interview with Janic Tremblay