Bird's Eye View

The Father of My Children: An Interview with Mia Hansen-Love

Mia Hansen-Love

Our big festival First Weekenders Club film is stunning French drama The Father Of My Children, on release by Artificial Eye from Friday 5 March. Our Senior Programmer Emily Seed chatted to director Mia Hansen-Løve yesterday in London.

The award-winning The Father Of My Children is released tomorrow by Artificial Eye in cinemas around London and the UK.

ES: Mia, congratulations on winning the Special Jury Prize at Cannes for

Igor plays Arthur Malkalvian

your second film The Father Of My Children, and for garnering excellent critical acclaim in the UK.

Birds Eye View is proud to be partnering with your film in our showcase of international work by women filmmakers. To what extent do you define yourself as a woman in this field, or are you primarily a filmmaker, outside gender terms?

MHL: I am a filmmaker. Gender is not how I define myself and I have never struggled in this industry because of my sex. However, I am thrilled to be in Birds Eye View, and also very proud to be part of a new generation of up-and-coming French filmmakers, most of whom happen to be women, such as Isild Le Besco (who also stars in BEV film Highly Strung, Aurélia Georges (director of 2007′s L’homme qui marche), and Léa Fehner (2009′s Qu’un seul tienne et les autres suivront -  Silent Voice).

The Father of My Children

ES: Your cousin Igor plays young filmmaker Arthur Malkalvian, who is starting to work on a project with Grégoire Canvel; his character is based on your own. interaction with Humbert Balsan (the independent French film producer on whom The Father Of My Children is loosely based). How did this come about, the initial work relationship and the portrayal?

MHL: I suppose it’s proof that I see myself as gender-unspecific in professional terms, that I cast my male cousin to play me! The scene in which Arthur meets with Grégoire is the episode in the film that most strongly relates to my own experience with Balsan. It is also proof of Grégoire’s vital need to keep supporting and nurturing young filmmakers, taking risks and keeping his own creative freedom. My previous film Tout Est Pardonné (All Is Forgiven, 2007) had been part-financed by Balsan when he died, and thanks to Balsan’s involvement, I was able to find further funding and shoot the film within a year. His influence was key to my film being made.

ES: Is this film a warning, a tribute, or simply a portrait?

MHL: It is not a warning, not a tribute and not simply a portrait. It is a témoignage, a testimony, a documentation but not a documentary, of the fictional producer Grégoire Canvel and thus his real-life inspiration Humbert Balsan. I don’t want to talk too much about Balsan, but it was important to me that I recorded this man who had a terrific effect on my life and work.

ES: It is the four women in Grégoire’s family who provide everything in

The Family

the non-cinema side of his life, who are the support he craves and who carry on for him where he leaves off. This film is as much as them as him – true?

MHL: Yes, hence the title, which signifies Grégoire not as a film producer but as a father. I tried to make a film about cinema and life being deeply bound together and as important as each other. The title can also be read as two-dimensional; Children can be both Grégoire’s family and his films. In the women’s discussion towards the end of the film about Grégoire’s soul, they decide that it will live on through all of his legacies, cinematic and biological.

ES: You used to be a film critic. Do you still write about film, or is that over for now?

MHL: It’s over while I am a director. I don’t think it’s possible to write successfully about films while also making them.

ES: What are you working on next?

MHL: I will be shooting my new project this summer. It’s a drama called Un Amour de Jeunesse (Goodbye First Love).

ES: We’re looking forward to seeing it. Thank you Mia, we hope to welcome you to Birds Eye View in the future!

Mia Hansen-Løve’s award-winning feature The Father Of My Children is released tomorrow by Artificial Eye in cinemas around London and the UK.