ANIMAL BLOOM Directed By Hélène Guétary

Shane: Tell us about your film?

Hélène: It’s about a girl who is broke and loveless and decides to undergo pharmaceutical tests that makes one emit powerful pheromones. She hopes to strike two birds with one stone : make ends meet and meet a man…What comes out of it is not what expected…

S: How did you come up with the idea for the film?

H: I read a lot of documentation about animal behavior when I wrote my last novel,

(La femme à poil long, Editions du Cherche-Midi, 2007)

An article about animal love rituals gave me the idea.

S: Was this a school project?

No.

S: How did you find your cast? 

H: I wrote the film thinking about Lea Drucker and Christine Citti for the parts of Susan and Dr Gachet, and made my way to them to propose them the script. I’m lucky: they accepted.  Most of the men in the film are my friends, except Louis-Do de Lencquesaing whom my casting director suggested to me.

S: How long did the film take?  (From conception to final edit)

H: One year.

S: What was the most difficult part of the shoot for you?

H: We lost the city permission for the opening sequence and stole the scene in a alley way downstairs from my house in a couple of hours. Although it was quite stressfull, it was great: all my neighbors let us put lights in their garden, and the cops didn’t show up.

The shoot was a wonderful moment, all along.

S: Tell us about the films festival experience so far?

H: The film has been aired on Canal + in France. They liked it so much they aired it 10 times in a couple of months.

It was very well received at the Valenciennes film festival.

Seattle is our second festival programmation.

S: What are you most looking forward to at the festival?

H: For the film to meet the audience

S: What films or filmmakers inspire you?

H: Fellini, Capra, Almodovar, Woody Allen, and more recently BEING JOHN MALKOVICH and ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND. I love Charlie Kaufman’s scripts.

S: What made you decide to become a filmmaker?

H: Painting led me to photography and photography to film making… which led me to litterature : when my first feature projected collapsed I turned it into a novel which was very successful in France “Le Petit Homme Bleu”.

S: What is next for you? 

H: I’m in the process of writing a feature development of Animal Singulier, and I’m preparing a new short to be shot in September.

S: What is next for the film?

H: Hopefully a lot more festivals around the world.

S: If asked to give one piece of advice to a new filmmaker making their first short film… What would it be?

H: Invest yourself in it as you would in a feature film.