13/09/2013 - The director of My Soul Healed by You, in competition in San Sebastian, recounts his troubles and lambasts TV pre-purchases

François Dupeyron is not a small time director, as evidenced by Drôle d’endroit pour une rencontre (nominated for the César 1989 for Best First Film and Best Screenplay), C’est quoi la vie? (in competition in San Sebastian in 1999), La chambre des officiers (in competition in Cannes in 2001), Monsieur Ibrahim [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (out of competition in Venice in 2003, nominated for the Golden Globe in 2004), Inguelezi (in competition in San Sebastian in 2004) and Aide-toi le ciel t’aidera (Special Mention in Rome in 2008). And his last opus, My Soul Healed By You [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (read the article) will have its world premiere in competition during the 61^st San Sebastian Film Festival (September 20 – 28, 2013). Also, his poignant and very offensive account, to the attention of the press, about his setbacks over the last few years at the heart of the funding system of French cinema is to be considered with the greatest interest, especially given the quality of his latest film (very well done and which Cineuropa will review in depth later). It will undoubtedly give rise to many reactions.  

"The last time a public network put money into one of my films, it was in 2003. For ten years I have been denied everything! (...) I didn’t sit around and do nothing, I wrote eight, ten screenplays, I received advances on receipts, I lost them. I wrote four novels (...) Since 2007, for Canal+, it’s no! I’ve been labelled. «Dupeyron, we really like what he does, but not this.» That’s the usual song, as soon as I hear it, I fear what comes next.”

Talking about the project My Soul Healed by You (which was finally saved by Paolo Branco), the filmmaker has a flashback to early 2013: "I have the advance, I have the region, and that’s it. Channel 2, 3, Arte, Canal, they all said no. I rewrote it, presented it again. No, twice. Orange says maybe if I have a distributor (...) In any case, all the distributors who saw the project said no (...) I had two meetings, in the same week, with two producers, for two projects. On the Wednesday with one, for a story about a guy who has a gift. He reread the screenplay and underlined the insults. Yes, the insults! (...) Just because you present to channel 2 or 3 with a vulgar word here and there, oh dear! You’re out... They have all the power and fear settles in (...) Ten years that everything is refused, and now it’s about insults (...).

Over the last few years, I tried to understand, I told myself they might be right, maybe my screenplays were too this, too that... I tried different styles, different genres. And then I understood there was nothing to understand. I wasted my time. For years now, the trend has been reading cards (...) Twice I was told “Subject not dealt with”. It’s like a Soviet system, if the TV says yes, you have a film, it says no... You can go to bed (...) I see producers who call themselves “independent”. They are all dependent on television and, today, on distributors (...) Two years ago, I wrote a note of intent for a screenplay we were proposing to Arte. I had the misfortune of quoting Tarkovski to say I-don’t-remember-what. Horror! The response was scathing, “No, Tarkovski, it’s not possible."

(Translated from French)