SIMPLE COMME SYLVAIN © FredGervais
Simple comme Sylvain (The Nature of Love), as seen by Monia Chokri
Monia Chokri is a superb actress who has made her mark as a director on three films. Her visual sensibility and meticulousness earned her the admiration of the Un Certain Regard Jury in 2019, for La Femme de mon frère (A Brother’s Love). Today, she is presenting Simple comme Sylvain (The Nature of Love) which follows the torments of Sophia, a philosophy teacher. She has been in a relationship for ten years but falls in love at first sight when she meets Sylvain, a carpenter from a completely different world to her own.
Can you tell us how your film came about?
I wanted to film a love story. There is an obsessive theme in all of my work to date: the impossibility, the thwarting of love. La Femme de mon frère (A Brother’s Love), was about a brother-sister relationship. I wanted to continue researching this topic because it is infinite. But I was also interested in making a film about two worlds meeting. What happens if two people who could potentially really love each other come from completely different backgrounds?
What was the atmosphere like on the shoot? Have you got any stories from the set?
One night, we were filming in an isolated cabin with very limited Internet. The special effects technician needed to run some tubes across the ground to create smoke. A drunk neighbour threatened him with an axe! We were warned by the production team who asked us to shut ourselves in the cabin, which, by the way, had no bolt on the door. We stayed in there, terrified, for more than an hour, thinking there was a maniac on the loose. The police got there in the end, but it was frightening.
What can you tell us about your actors?
I was lucky enough to work with one of Quebec’s greatest actresses in the leading role, who also happens to be my best friend. We had such a strong connection that I didn’t have to direct her, precisely because we have exactly the same thoughts at the same time. Magalie Lépine-Blondeau is a powerful, sensual, intelligent and deep actress. Pierre-Yves Cardinal is an actor who is suffused with a great tenderness. It was important to me to find a man to play the role of Sylvain who had a great sensitivity and attentiveness. Working with the two of them was an experience full of joy and tenderness.
What did directing this film teach you?
I changed director of photography, which took me out of my comfort zone. I was
used to working with a director of photography who was very much around in the run up to the shoot. André Turpin, on the other hand, was not available much during that period and I had to trust myself, my direction ideas and my cutting decisions. But during the shoot, André was very present and reassuring. So I learned to trust myself.
What would you like people to take away from your film?
I made this project with gentleness and kindness. I wanted to suffuse this love story with that.
“I would like people to come away with the same feeling of tenderness that my team and I felt.”
Can you tell us about your next project?
I can’t talk about it in detail, the project is in the early stages of writing and I don’t want to interfere with it. What I can say, is its a film about a social subject. It will be my first film to be shot in France with actors from here. And obviously, it will tell the story of a woman’s experience…
