TIFF 2022 Women Directors: Alice Winocour – “Paris Memories”

Alice Winocour directed her first feature film in 2011, “Augustine.” It was selected for Cannes’ Critics Week and nominated for a César Award for the Best First Film. Her second feature film, “Disorder,” was presented in the Official Selection at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. She co-wrote “Mustang” with the director Deniz Gamze Ergüven, winner of the César for Best Screenplay. The film represented France at the Oscars in 2016. She also co-wrote Maïmouna Doucouré’s “Cuties.” Winocour’s third film, “Proxima,” received awards at the 2019 Toronto and San Sebastián Film Festivals.

“Paris Memories” is screening at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, which is running from September 8-18.

W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.

AC: It is a film of resilience, the story of a woman who rebuilds herself after an attack. She takes stock of her life with the feeling that something must change. As part of her memory has been erased, she begins to investigate to reconstruct it. Along the way, she will find a possible happiness.

W&H: What drew you to this story?

AC: During the attacks in Paris, my brother was at the Bataclan, on November 13, in hiding, and I stayed in sms with him for part of the night. The film was built from the memories of this traumatic event, then from my brother’s story in the days following the attack. I experimented on myself how memory deconstructed, and very often reconstructed events.

W&H: What do you want people to think about after they watch the film?

AC: I would like them to feel the notion of the diamond at the heart of the trauma. Those positive things that could happen around a traumatic event: friendship, romantic relationships, strong bonds that are formed and which would not have been formed without the event. I, myself, come from a diamond in the trauma: my grandmother who was looking for her father, deported during the Second World War, met her husband, himself a survivor of Auschwitz. They were a happy couple, who lived an immense love story. Victims say that sometimes it only takes one detail to switch back to humanity: a simple gesture, or gaze, can reconnect you to humanity. For Mia, it was a hand that kept her in the world of the living. 

W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?

AC: Paris is a cosmopolitan city. In the film, we meet Australians, Germans, Asians, Senegalese. There is this sentence in the film that says, “If the Senegalese, Malians and Sri Lankans went on strike, we couldn’t eat in Paris.” You only have to observe the back kitchens of Parisian restaurants to realize this. I was interested in showing the Paris of the “invisibles.” If Mia sees ghosts, the ghosts of the film are also undocumented immigrants, street vendors at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.

For the exteriors, we shot in documentary conditions, that is to say without blocking the streets or traffic. It was stressful for the team, but [I had a] strong stake in staging. It was necessary to render the bubbling and colorful aspect of Paris. Showing the vitality of Paris, its spellbinding aspect, was important. That’s what the terrorists want to destroy.

W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.

AC: The budget of the film is five million euros. It was partially financed by Pathé, which handles international sales and French release. Pathé is also co-producer. The rest comes from French TV, a regional fund and public fund (CNC). It is quite typical of an independent financing in France, with the major contribution of Pathé.

W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?

AC: My passion for cinema developed quite early. When I was little, my father bought a VCR and I watched movies all day with my little brother. We had a completely compulsive relationship with movies. I remember one summer, when I was seven years old, we watched “Psycho” every day, even several times a day. Oddly, it didn’t seem to concern my parents.

Later, after law school, I took the national film school exam and started as a screenwriter.

W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?

AC: The best advice was given to me by Olivier Assayas: “Trust your guts.” But I also rely on this NASA motto: “Prepare for the worst and enjoy every part of it.”

The worst advice: “You should make more feminine films.”

W&H: What advice do you have for other women directors? 

AC: Trust your guts. 

W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.

AC: I love Chantal Akerman and Kathryn Bigelow. They are both powerful and raw. They are not afraid to explode the codes — they do as they please by exploring very different worlds. But they also physically exploded all kinds of things in their films. I really like the kitchen destruction scene in “Saute ma ville” by Chantal Akerman. In general, I love explosions. The most beautiful end of cinema is that of “Zabriskie Point.” 

W&H: What, if any, responsibilities do you think storytellers have to confront the tumult in the world, from the pandemic to the loss of abortion rights and systemic violence?

AC: Storytellers and artists in general should give us the keys to understand the hardship of the world we live in with its injustice and human rights abuse. This will probably contribute to changing things in the long run. But this does not mean that these crucial matters should always be treated in a realistic way. There is a big difference between fiction and documentaries and some stories that may seem metaphorical or poetical are just as effective to open our eyes.

W&H: The film industry has a long history of underrepresenting people of color onscreen and behind the scenes and reinforcing — and creating — negative stereotypes. What actions do you think need to be taken to make Hollywood and/or the doc world more inclusive?

 AC: Cinema is not an island and it reflects the violence of the whole society. There is always the possibility of having quotas. But more than quotas, I believe artists themselves should be aware of the importance of these questions and have their works echo it.

I feel personally concerned by these issues. For “Paris Memories,” I tried altogether to show the hard condition of immigrant workers with no legal status, and our common humanity when confronted to dramatic events such as terrorists attacks.