Les Fantomes will be screening at Straight Jacket Guerrilla Film Festival
*How did you get into making films?
I never wanted to do anything else. The dream of becoming a movie actor hatched when I was about seven. By the age of 13, I was writing my first movie scripts, and at 14, I made my first movies -- with a little video camera. All the children in the neighbourhood had to act. The transition into "real" movies was inevitable. First, I went to drama school, then I met an aspiring director in Berlin, and we did our first movies together in 2004.
*What inspired you to make your movie?
I always dreamt of doing an old-fashioned psychological horror film, but it somehow never came about. In 2016, I said to myself that I really want to make a genre movie before I turn 40. So I started developing the screenplay. I had just read a book about psychopathology by Robert D. Hare that inspired me to create the character of Nicolas Wolf. We shot the film in late 2017, just four months shy of my 40th birthday: Mission accomplished!
*How has your style evolved?
My scripts are always quite dialogue-driven. I can't deny my theatre and poetry background. I did stand-upin England for several years, and my writing is almost always in English. Since I am not a native speaker, I use language differently, more carefully, one might say. I've been studying movies all my life, ever since I was 13, so my insight into movies and movie making is quite profound and diverse. I love the movies by Jules Dassin, Polanski, Hitchcock, Bergman, Tarkovsky, and Eloy de la Iglesia. Working with Antony Hickling
has been most educational and enlightening. So I guess my "style", if I really have one, is the sum of me.
*Tell us any strange or funny stories while making the film?
The funniest moment was related to a vocabulary misfire. We did have a wonderful
day of filming with Sophie Tellier, who is a remarkably intense actress. By the end of
the shoot, I wanted to say, "C'était vraiment un honneur de travailler avec vous." ("It's
been really an honour working with you.") But I was so nervous that my brain just
didn't work properly, so I said: "C'était vraiment un horreur de travailler avec vous."
("It's been really a horror working with you.") Sophie laughed so hard, and I blushed.
*The Misrule Film Movement & Pink8 manifesto bring what to mind?
Spontaneously? It makes me think of John Waters' "Cecil B. Demented".
*What can we expect from your next film?
Right now, I don't have any plans for the next three years.