#JULIA DUCOURNAU SERIAL#

Rousselle’s role as a serial killer who has grown up with a titanium plate in her skull, after suffering a childhood head injury in a car crash, held other challenges. He did an amazing job and actually enjoyed it, but this is something Vincent and I have in common - our belief that the first way to understand the character is through the body.” Killer instinct Muscle mass was necessary for the audience to understand exactly what was being injected, “otherwise it might look like the character had diabetes or some other issue.

“In the screenplay, his character is injecting steroids,” explains Ducournau. They were really welcoming, we were part of the team and we learned a lot,” reveals Ducournau.Īt the director’s insistence, Lindon also took up bodybuilding for the year preceding the shoot in the autumn of 2020 to bulk up his physique.

“We lived there for a few days, doing the night shifts. She and Lindon even embedded in a fire station in the small town of Sainte-Genevieve-des‑Bois outside Paris, which receives thanks in the final credits. Like her Cannes-winning predecessor Campion, Ducournau likes to begin preparing her sets, cast, make-up and props well ahead of time and with meticulous attention to detail. Diaphana Distribution released the film in France just days after its Cannes victory, drawing 300,000 admissions for a gross of around $2.2m, while Neon released it in the US in early October, achieving the biggest US opening weekend by a Palme d’Or winner since Fahrenheit 9/11 back in 2004. Titane was lead produced by Jean-Christophe Reymond at Paris-based Kazak and is represented for international sales by Wild Bunch International. The feature has since been selected as France’s 2022 international feature Oscar contender in the face of stiff competition from Audrey Diwan’s Venice Golden Lion winner Happening. Spanning body horror, a Tarantino-esque killing spree, a love story and comedy, the exhilaratingly disconcerting work stars Vincent Lindon as a steroid-injecting macho fire captain with a vulnerable side, opposite newcomer Agathe Rousselle as an on-the-run serial killer and car-show erotic dancer masquerading as his long-lost son. The fact this is how she will now go down in the annals of the festival’s near 75-year history is at once fitting and ironic, given the gender stereotype-smashing intentions at the heart of Titane. “I have a very secluded life,” she replies, laughing, to a comment on her choice of water as the weekend draws in.ĭucournau became only the second female director to win Cannes’ coveted Palme d’Or at its delayed 2021 edition in July, following in the footsteps of Jane Campion with The Piano in 1993. It is an image at odds with the crazy environment and events of her Cannes-winning second feature Titane. It is early evening on a Friday, and French director Julia Ducournau is sipping a sparkling water as she sits on a Zoom call from a warmly lit, book-lined room.

Julia ducournau