Atlantide This Italian feature is probably the most beautiful and aesthetical I have ever cut. Moreover, talking to Yuri about the film, also with Marta and Marco, was simply fascinating. Watch out, Yuri is the most promising Italian filmmaker!
Broken Keys As far as I remember, my first memory of an international event has been the first civil war in Lebanon. When associate producer Valentin Domont called me to cut this feature, I was happy and sure that we would produce a great film. I am very proud of this collaboration with Jimmy, Gabriel Yared, and the incredible Frederic Domont.
La Môme Right after “Crimson Rivers 2” came out, I went to Olivier Dahan’s place to show him the cut of a commercial we were finishing. He made me read the ten first pages of the script “La môme” he had just written. It provided a complex and smart parallel of Edith Piaf’s American career to her childhood. As I finished reading, I stared at him astounded, telling him: “Olivier, I’ll kill you if you don’t hire me on this project”.
France Bruno Dumont is a genuine film author and can cut by himself. But during the editing process, he needs an external point of view. Therefore, he asked me to cut a whole version of “France”, with an innovative and interesting methodology: “I won’t give you any brief, cut it as if you cut it for yourself”. Taking ideas from this version or not was not the main purpose: it also allowed him to keep on going. Before the shooting, I have also cut the beginning sequence with archive footage of President Macron: that was really funny!
Dikkenek I finished and boosted the editing of this motion picture that was produced by my friend Eric Bassoff, with whom I share a similar taste for caustic humour: when working on fast-paced progressions, jokes are often needed for the visual rethoric. We structured the funniest ones at the end, so to obscure these ones might be misogynist, homophobic or racist. The best reviews appeared in “Libération”, the parisian newspaper which decribed that Dikkenek as a “punk comedy”.
Simon This feature film has a very delicate subject: a teenage kid is diagnosed with a cancer and has to suddenly shift his perspective by making decisions that one wouldn’t usually have to make at such young age. During the editing process, I also wrote the voice over text, which was a new experience with narrative for me.
Tears For Sale “Tears for sale” is the craziest motion picture and the best script I ever had the pleasure of working on: inspired by real events, yet it is controlled by Uros’ slavic passionate personality and Shigeru Umebayashi’s astounding music. The cutting and post-production process was long and challenging, but the team all agreed it was completely worth it! The film finally found distribution with Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp company.
Crimson River 2 We have cut this motion picture in summer of 2003, when a serious heat wave killed countless people in France: I can remember my body and brain virtually boiling while I was cutting shots with faceless monks, who were jumping everywhere, and while Christopher Lee’s deep, dark voice became the ultimate performance of “the bad guy”.
Kirot It was tough work to re-cut this feature film in Tel Aviv: thankfully, I had my friend and producer Edouard Douek by my side, as well as the marvellous “James Bond girl” Olga Kurylenko. Who could imagine better supporter for women’s position in Israeli society today?
The Secret A motion picture with Lili Taylor and David Duchonny! It was also a true pleasure to work with the famous French actor Vincent Perez as the director: I had loved his performance in Chéreau’s “Queen Margot” and while working together I would often ask him to give me his signature glance, with raised eyebrows!
Belle comme la femme d’un autre This was my second collaboration with producer Yann Gilbert, and my first with his wife Catherine Castel. They invited me on the shooting on the Island of Réunion, an ideal place to share the everyday life of the crew and actors. I’ll never forget my moments spent with Olivier Marchal, a former cop who nowadays is a talented director and actor.