Interview by
Benjamin Poole
Director Laurent Micheli's
Lola and the Sea focuses on Lola (Mya Bollaers), who lives in the city with her
best friend Samir (Sami Outalbali). Emboldened by her life changing
transition and with the support of her mother, she has the world at her
feet with no plans of looking back. When Lola receives the devastating
news that her mother has suddenly passed away, she returns home for the
funeral and to face her estranged father, Phillipe (Benoît Magimel). Driven together by the common goal to fulfil her mother’s last wishes,
Lola and Phillipe reluctantly embark on a journey to the North Sea. Forced
to spend time alone together, Phillipe begins to accept his daughter for
the first time.
The film deals with some very important issues. I was wondering what
sort of research you did when scripting the character of Lola? Mya
Bollaers is tremendous in the role, and, if this is not too
impertinent a question, how far did her own experiences inform the
character?
As I’m not a trans person myself it was very important not to put my own
pre-conceived ideas onto the subject. I had to be really mindful
when writing about an experience that isn’t my own and even more so as
it’s a stigmatized community about which so many clichés are written.
So, I did a lot of research while writing the script and watched a lot
of documentaries. I read novels and features and met trans people as
well as speaking to the friends I already have in the community. I even
spoke to parents of trans children.
By the time I did the casting for Lola, the script was pretty much
done. Mya didn’t influence the actual writing of the script that
much or at least no more than any other actor or actress influences a
script. However, her presence was nevertheless essential for me and it
was very important to work with a transgender person for this role, for
both political and artistic reasons. Mya brought a lot of things to the
character but, primarily, sensitivity. Her presence on the set and in
the film was vital and brought a form of truthfulness.
Watching Lola and the Sea, I felt that a real strength of the
film was the sustained interactions between Lola and her dad (Benoît
Magimel). There is a real energy created via the dialogue and the
performances! I note that you have a background as an actor yourself
and I wonder how that experience informs your filmmaking?
I believe the fact I was an actor for so many years gives me a natural
empathy for both the profession and the actors I direct, meaning that I
have already experienced and felt the issues I come across. Knowing this
allows me to put myself into their place so I understand what they need
to hear to get the best out of them. I have great respect for actors and
great confidence in them and their intelligence. There are certain
things only they can feel about a character that, as a writer, we will
never be able to feel. I often talk about ‘emotional logic’ and that’s
something that as a writer/director you have a hard time feeling because
you tend to think of the characters as a whole whereas the actor only
sees the film from their own character’s perspective. So this ‘emotional
logic’ encompasses their body and their feelings so they can bring
something very personal to the creation of a film.
I find the filmmaking industry fascinating. People always quote the
‘nobody knows anything’ maxim, but I think that is truer than ever,
what with the business model changing so radically over the last five
years. What I find thrilling, however, is the potential for personal
films like Lola and the Sea to not only get produced but
achieve distribution, despite the odds. What did you find were the
major challenges to making an independent film?
It’s true that making a film is full of pitfalls. I was really very
fortunate with the funding for it because I had a lot of support and the
financiers understood the project in a fair way. Mind you, one of the
main difficulties was in convincing the television channels who
represent a significant portion of the funding. Despite all of the work
that went into having a script as accessible as possible, it was still
tough to convince them that the film would have popular appeal.
There is a natural reticence surrounding the subject, which I find
unfortunate especially as the distributors of the film have to work
extra hard to attract the public to go to see a film like this. It’s
such a shame because, as we have experienced so many times at festivals,
those people who thought they wouldn’t enjoy it were actually very
touched by the film. Sometimes we have the impression that the story of
a young trans girl won’t affect us because we haven’t experienced it
ourselves but that’s not true as we have discovered time and time again.
We are in the thrall of the power of cinema which is able to create an
empathy between the audience and a character even though it has nothing
to do with their everyday life.
I would say that the main difficulty in making an independent film is
finding outlets that bring in an audience for it in an age where people
have access to a huge catalogue of films and series. To stand out from
the crowd is complicated and takes a lot of work from everyone involved.
If there is one message you would want audiences to take away from
the film what would it be, and how does the film convey this
message?
If there is one message to be taken from the film, I believe it is this:
as citizens we all have a responsibility for the well-being of others. I
recently read an interview with a trans person who said that we often
tend to say that trans people are people who are born in the wrong body
but actually that’s not it at all. These are people who were born into
the wrong society. That is exactly what I tried to get across with this
film. What needs to change is the way we all look at a trans person.
It’s not specific to trans people but it’s down to how we treat all
people from minorities and it’s this that dictates their well-being. So
it kind of grows out of this logic that a trans person has an internal
problem which is basically a dysphoria problem. It’s this mindset that
relieves the viewer of all responsibility and what I tried to do was to
empower the person who was going to watch this story.
Here’s one for you Laurent. If you could programme
Lola and the Sea in a triple bill with two other movies, what
films would they be and where would Lola and the Sea fall in
the line-up?
Well, I would do a programme that would centre around the stories of
transgender characters at three different ages and I would start with
childhood and the documentary Little Girl by Sébastien
Lifschitz. Then I’d screen Lola and the Sea, which features teenage characters and then I’d end with
A Fantastic Woman
by Sebastián Lelio, which is a film I really like and is about an adult
transgender character. I would also put on a bonus film about a trans
man, the documentary Ocean, directed by the actor Ocean.
Lola and the Sea is in UK cinemas
and on VOD from December 17th and in Irish cinemas from December 27th.