14 days of shooting, a first experience of directing a feature film with a very small team, and a film with great energy: here is Mi Iubita mon amour, the first film by actress Noémie Merlant (Portrait of the young girl on fire ). In theaters.
This is the story of Jeanne, 27 years old. The young woman is going to celebrate her bachelorette party in Romania with friends. There she meets Nino, 17, and everything separates them. It’s the beginning of a passionate and timeless summer.
Here is the starting point of Mi Iubita my lovefirst feature film by and with Noemie Merlant (revelation of Portrait of the girl on fire by Celine Sciamma). Noémie Merlant directs and co-wrote the film with Gimi Covaci (who plays the role of Nino, the male lead).
Particularity of this film which is released in theaters this Wednesday (after a selection at the Cannes Film Festival in 2021): it was shot in just 14 days, without a producer, and written in a short time, with a team reduced to 11 people.
A team made up of close and very close to Noémie Merlant, the actresses of the film being her “forever friends“as she indicates to our microphone, specifying that they met at Cours Florent.”We spent a lot of time all together. We were talking about cinema, life, lots of things…”
“We all created a very strong bond, she continues. “We said we have to make a film together one day. Time passes. And then Gimi tells us: “Come to my house in Romania next summer”. We started doing location scouting and the idea came to make a film about us, our friendship, our love story that was born“.
This way of creating, in this spontaneity, was in keeping with the purpose of the film.
“It is something improbable and which has not been told too much“, she adds, underlining the energy instilled by her team and the freedom of her partner in the film, Gimi Covaci. “Gimi says we have to go, that we mustn’t put things off until the day after tomorrow. You have to give a fuck what people think, and this energy, I find it great“.
Noémie Merlant who ultimately produced the film with Pierre Guyard (particularly producer of fighters by Thomas Cailley, with Adèle Haenel and Kévin Azaïs) comments on this choice: “We wanted to stay between us, we were afraid of losing the essence of what we wanted to say, but also because I still didn’t feel entitled to make a first feature film, produced with people, money, which inevitably are a pressure. It can paralyze, especially me. Very quickly, I can let myself be influenced, and as a result, lose my point. Stay with people who know me well, who won’t let me wander into what I want to say. This way of creating, in this spontaneity, was in keeping with the purpose of the film. We said to ourselves that it would surely infuse the images, the film, with something more.”
You deserve a love: “Hafsia Herzi was in all plans and in all positions”
To find the impetus to make this feature film, Noémie Merlant underlines the importance of a film like that of Hafsia Herzi, You deserve a lovewhich was “a real inspiration“.”To see that she can do it, that it’s also possible to make films like that“.
Noémie Merlant also always has a very special role in mind for her. “It’s thanks to Portrait [de la jeune fille en feu], a lot.” “By what I learned through this role, through our discussions. To dare, to listen to yourself as a woman, to dare to tell our stories, to dare to direct, even if I am an actress. Don’t say no to yourself, it just has to take up too much space, I have to stay in my role as an actress. Don’t apologize and go for it!“
Noémie Merlant in 5 outstanding roles
And to add:Try to reflect on our relationship to desire, our relationship to love, to mutual love, to consent, to gaze. Also in the way of filming feminine desire and, as a woman, of filming the man. All of these are things that have come with a changing society. These are more and more questions that are being raised, and so much the better, but me too, a lot through Céline Sciamma and her film, that’s for sure.
Mi iubita mon amour, Noémie Merlant’s first feature film is in theaters this Wednesday.
César 2020, Portrait of the young girl on fire…: Noémie Merlant speaks