Interview with Eloise de Breteuil
Trieste Film Festival 2006
K.
How did you begin making films?
I started when I was in art school. I know that sounds like a clichè but I had this image in my head that I couldn't create using the fine arts. When I started making movies I realized that was the only way to make the atmosphere I had in my head.
"K" is your first short film: how did you approach it?
I was trying to work on the image in order to create an atmosphere more than a story. In a very short film it is pretty hard to tell a story, therefore I tried to give the audience just a feeling, so that each person who sees the movie can make his own story.
So you started from an image more than from a story?
Yes, in the sense that a viewpoint creates an atmosphere. I haven't worked on any screenplay: I wrote the voice-over after shooting and watching the images, I was inspired from what I filmed. Of course I had an idea of where I was going and which direction the film was moving to, but the actual sentences said by the voice-over were decided afterwards. It was after watching the movie that I wrote the voice-over of a guy talking about his life.
Do you think that there's a different approach in making short stories or short films?
I think so. I know lot of short stories that try to give just an atmosphere, but I find them too abstract. In short film it's different, also because a special contribution, in the sense of creating an atmosphere, is given by music.
How did you work for the soundtrack in this short film? Was it made during or after the shooting?
As well as for the voice-over, the music was written after the final editing. The composer watched the film and created the music following his inspiration. Actually I forced the guitar player to create the soundtrack: I put the instrument in his hands and I told him “follow this atmosphere and write the music.”