Interviews of the directors of the official selection for 2016 LUX Prize, during the EP plenary session (21-24/11) in Strasbourg. Statements by Leyla BOUZID, Director of 'As I Open My Eyes', Jonas DORNBACH, Producer of 'Toni Erdmann', Claude BARRAS, Director of 'Ma vie de courgette'.

Strasbourg

interview

LUX Cinema Prize 2016 (T)

2016 LUX Prize: interviews of the directors of the official selection

SOUNDBITE (French), Leyla BOUZID, Director of &apos;As I Open My Eyes&apos;, On the fact that being nominated for the LUX Price is a real opportunity as it allows the film to be seen in a much broader scale, and together with the pedagogic work accompanying the film, it makes easier for the public to access the film: &ldquo;I think it is important for the public to watch this kind of films, and maybe without this nomination it wouldn&rsquo;t be possible&rdquo;.

SOUNDBITE (French), Leyla BOUZID, Director of 'As I Open My Eyes', On the situation in Tunisia and the importance of the revolution; it is a long process, sometimes we are too impatient and we want the changes to materialise immediately but this is not possible, a magic wand cannot erase 20 years of dictatorship.

SOUNDBITE (French), Leyla BOUZID, Director of 'As I Open My Eyes', On the area in which one of the scenes take place, Gafsa, the phosphate mining industry in Tunisia, one of the biggest sources of wealth of the country, a place that has been wrecked over the years, where people have been left with nothing: "I wanted to pay tribute to the people from there, and at the same time it was a way to understand where is the father in this story, although we do not see who are those workers, they think that the father, even if he is quite an honest man, is corrupted by the system. Actually it shows how in the political system of Ben Ali, everybody is corrupted by someone else"

SOUNDBITE (French), Leyla BOUZID, Director of 'As I Open My Eyes', Tunisian women are very strong and very involved in all levels of the countries life. I would even say they are the engine of Tunisian society (...) Farah will try to discover the nightlife at Tunis and that is a space reserved for men, there are spaces that are reserved for men, there are certain boundaries, but she keeps her strength and she is the engine of the film.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jonas DORNBACH, Producer of Toni Erdmann, It&rsquo;s a great honour to be nominate; we have been nominated once with Tabu, we were co-producers of this film made by Miguel Gomez, we were crossing fingers and we did not make it, but it was also great to be nominated, because when you are nominated your film gets the translation in the 24 languages and that is amazing. And now we cross fingers and we hope that Toni Erdmann will get the tower of bubble.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jonas DORNBACH, Producer of Toni Erdmann, In all films of Maren (Ade) you always feel very engaged with the main character, but also she gives you a lot of room for interpretation and she is really confident in the audience, she really trusts the audience. She is not making close-ups telling You have to see this or this, or explaining you everything. And also this film is about a family situation and everybody has a family and everybody has a certain role in the family and everybody is stuck in this role after a couple of years, and this film is trying to say to us in a way that you can escape out of this role and how difficult it is to escape from it.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jonas DORNBACH, Producer of Toni Erdmann, Maren she wanted to tell the story abroad, because that is also for the main characters to be more stuck together as everyone around them is not speaking the same language, and on the other hand the film is also talking about capitalism what capitalism can do. And you can see it in Romania for example, a whole new capitalism that came in this country and blew it up in a way.

SOUNDBITE (French), Claude BARRAS, Director of &apos;My life as a courgette&apos;, The topic is a social one that calls for a certain realism, and for the realism I made the choice to record the voices of the children as we do in a fiction movie and we have taken kids that were not actors that we have chosen because of their age, their character... so they could be the closest possible to the characters; and the final result is a mix of the puppets and their design, the animation work, and the voice coming from the kids.

SOUNDBITE (French), Claude BARRAS, Director of 'My life as a courgette', This was a co-production 50% Swiss-French and I am very pleased we can be here as I am very pro-European and I hope it will reinforce the ties between Switzerland and Europe in the movie making. Also, I am very happy that from the point of view of animation, that we have open up a little and open up the contest to other type of film. So all in all I am very happy to be here.

SOUNDBITE (French), Claude BARRAS, Director of 'My life as a courgette', on the films for children, I think there is space for everything, a bit of fun, a bit of serious thing, that makes you reflect a little, that talks to your heart. We are more on this direction and when we see how the film has been received, I think there is place for it.

SOUNDBITE (French), Claude BARRAS, Director of 'My life as a courgette', As an artist I want to transmit values, of openness, solidarity and compassion, those are the ideas I have tried to transmit with the film. I would like to take some action, together with some children associations in Switzerland, to bring some of these ideas to reality, because at the end of the day when there is conflict, the first victims are always the children.