Sandrine Brodeur-Desrosiers and Carmine Pierre-Dufour focus on a mother-daughter dynamic in their new short ‘Fanmi’
Film And TV Now spoke with the film-makers about the short.
You dedicate the film at the end to your mothers. What makes them so special as individuals as well as your mothers?
Since the film centers on a genuine portrayal of a mother/daughter relationship, it made sense to us as female directors to dedicate the film to our mothers. Of course, our mothers feel special to us for many reasons.
They are both strong, generous, hard-working women that we admire. At the same time, the film is meant to highlight how mother/daughter relationships aren’t always perfect! In that sense, this dedication is also meant to celebrate the beauty and complexity of this bond.
We also wanted to add the name of our producer François Bonneau’s mother, because like our two mothers, she helped us with the film. It was truly a family affair with Sandrine’s mom doing costume designing and Carmine and François’ moms doing the catering. It was very special to have them take part of the process, especially since they were our greatest inspiration for the film.
When we mentioned the dedication to our two actresses, asking if they were interested in joining their mothers’ names to it, they both felt like this was a nice gesture. It was especially meaningful to Marie-Évelyne, who plays the daughter in the film, because she lost her mother a few years ago.
The shooting of the film seemed cathartic to her; she was able to share beautiful stories with us about her mother and honour her memory.
The story is focused on reflection and regret. What comes to mind from your own personal lives when you reflect on the short?
Carmine: The film is an adaptation of a short story by French Canadian writer Monique Proulx and what has always attracted to me to this story is the evident love the mother and daughter have for one another but also how they struggle to communicate; how different they seem to be and yet how similar they are.
My mother is very protective of me and I was always afraid she wouldn’t tell me if she was sick. Making this film helped me raise this concern with her, to make sure she would let me help her and take care of her like she’s done for me my whole life. I also think as a writer and filmmaker who is passionate about my career, I’m always working, constantly busy, and it can be hard to make time for my family and friends.
Part of me is afraid I’ll be so absorbed with my projects that I won’t be able to be there when someone close to me really needs me. Telling this story is my way of reminding myself to pay attention, to be present, so I don’t regret not being there for my loved ones.
Sandrine: Carmine’s script resonated a lot in me for various reasons. What comes to mind first is this fear of voicing certain things to those I love. Maybe I’m sometimes afraid to hurt them or to dive into deep subjects that would affect them too much.
I think about the loss of my aunt. I never had the chance to discuss the fact that she was adopted. I never told her how deeply I loved her, that she was like a second mother to me. She died suddenly and it felt like I never had the chance to broach so many subjects with her. The film felt like a turning point to address some important points with my own mother.
I was afraid to voice some things, now I feel like there are ways to slowly build an even better relationship and make the most of it while we can in the present. It may sound cliché but my parents are my best friends and addressing what’s uncomfortable may help me have no regrets when it comes to my relationship with them.
What I loved when we screened the film is that many people told us how it made them think about their own relationship with their parents. It was great to feel that the film gave space for audience members to have this type of reflection.
Tell us about your cast.
Marie-Évelyne Lessard and Mireille Métellus are well known and respected actresses in Quebec, they were our dream cast so we were very lucky to have them on board.
We didn’t know them personally before doing the film and we weren’t sure if they’d be interested in doing this little film with no money. Carmine had reached out to Mireille with the script, but hadn’t heard back. Then, one day, Carmine was out for dinner with some friends and she saw Mireille come in. She was with a group of actors she was doing a play with at the time.
Carmine decided to wait till Mireille went to the bathroom to follow her and ambush her (as respectfully as possible!). In the ladies’ room, Carmine pretended she was there coincidentally and nervously pitched Mireille the film. Mireille looked Carmine straight in the eye and simply said, “of course I’ll do your film”. Carmine was thrilled and so moved by this great actress’ generosity and openness.
We approached Marie-Évelyne in a similar way (minus the bathroom ambush!!). We sent her the script and she connected to the material immediately and absolutely wanted to do the film.
And so it was, despite our lack of money, they both accepted to act in our film. We had a very qualified crew so the set was professional, but we were incredibly lucky to have the trust of our acting duo.
Tell us about your production team.
Our producer, François Bonneau, who is a seasoned producer in Quebec, did everything he could for years to try and get the film financed. Unfortunately, we never got the support of Quebec’s cultural institutions. After years of rejection, we decided to make the film anyway.
The fact that it was a two-hander that took place mostly in one location encouraged us to think it was possible and we found ways of adjusting the script without losing its essence. François was a great help when it came time to finding solutions to simplify the script. It was also thanks to him that we succeeded in having the same working conditions as a professional team (except for the fact that no one was paid).
He was the one who secured post-production partners, made sure we got access to quality equipment and got great deals. He was really by our side through every step of this whole journey. This film is also his.
Where did you shoot and for how long?
We shot in Carmine’s apartment at the time. The shoot took four days. We shot the film in the fall of 2019 which means our post-production happened mostly during the pandemic.
From Carmine’s first draft of the script in 2013 to finishing post-production in 2020, it took us 7 long years to make this film. Seeing the film’s journey, hearing how audiences are moved by its story and characters, makes it all feel worth it to us.
Who and what are your key cinematic influences?
Our key cinematic influences for the film were the work of Barry Jenkins, Céline Sciamma and Jane Campion. Barry Jenkin’s Moonlight, particularly, with its poetic use of colour and lighting was something we had in mind while preparing Fanmi.
Our director of photography, Léna Mill-Reuillard, is also a visual artist and we were very inspired by her work. She works a lot with natural light reflections on walls, through windows, etc. It was while researching her work that we developed the idea of using the little pinkish light that grows throughout the film.
How does the Canadian film industry support filmmakers and how can people who don’t have much of a background or experience get involved?
The film industry in Canada is mainly financed by different cultural institutions that are supported by the provincial and federal governments.
Though it’s quite competitive – many people apply and not many are selected – there are different programs that are targeted towards up-and-coming filmmakers and that can give some who doesn’t have much experience their first chance to develop a script or shoot a short film.
Tell us about the music in the film.
Knowing that our budget was very limited, we knew we couldn’t have a score so in terms of sound design, we really focused on taking sounds that existed in Martine’s apartment and enhancing them to create a mood.
Through the film, as Martine suspects her mother is hiding something from her, a pinkish light that represents her intuition takes up more and more space, and the soundscape gets more and more worrisome. We then wanted to end the film on something soothing and beautiful so we thought a song by Haitian folk singer Manno Charlemagne would be perfect.
Luckily for us, he had a song titled “Manman” (mother in Haitian Creole) which fit the film perfectly. We were fortunate enough to get to work with Grammy-nominated singer Malika Tirolien and award-winning composer Peter Venne to record a unique version of the song for the film. We thought Malika’s humming intro, reminiscent of a mother singing a lullaby, was the perfect transition to the end credits.
Sandrine, you are active in both creativity and education respectively. What are the key things that you impart to students keen to pursue a career in film-making?
My strong background in acting and directing has led me to teach a class at Concordia University to emerging directors that focuses on directing actors for the screen.
Sometimes, students talk about a «vision» but they don’t really know what they want from actors. So I’m teaching them how to build a vision through text analysis, how to make coherent choices, and, most of all, we talk about result acting / result directing and what other tools they can use to communicate their vision to actors.
Through the class, I hope they get a better understanding of the acting process and learn to accompany actors humanly through it. I also teach casting tricks. I’m sensitive to the fact that BIPOC and 2SLGBTQIA+ characters should have more space on screen, and also in a much diverse way.
I’d love them to understand that filmmakers can decide to endorse who’s on screen, to be creative concerning casting, to challenge the stereotypes and to have a nuanced take on certain characters and topics by the way they portray them on screen. I’d also love for my students to believe in their potential and be empowered when they leave my class.
I’m very lucky to be active as a film director. I see my work as something that is evolving, I learn from every set, it’s the same when I’m teaching. I learn a lot from students too.
Carmine, you are part of the co-writing team for the hit medical drama TRANSPLANT. What are the key things you’ve learned working on that have helped shape you as both a writer and filmmaker?
As a writer, being able to collaborate with a room full of talented and experienced writers definitely helped me hone my craft.
I also got to spend a lot of time on set and got to understand the inner workings of a television show of this scale. I witnessed as different directors like Podz, Kim Nguyen and Chloé Robichaud, were brought on to direct a few episodes and seeing their different styles and processes really inspired me as a filmmaker.
What issues and themes are you keen to explore in future work?
Sandrine: I’ve done so many different projects. Lately I worked a lot with kids as main characters on naturalistic films about immigration and divorce. But now I’m writing an oneiric film with a bunch of strong adult female leads.
Every project brings its own personality and sparkle, it’s what I like to find when I direct. One of my biggest interests is telling stories that build empathy towards one’s life experience and spread nuances and complexity on topics that we may take for granted or we may generalize. I like to research and document myself to understand others’ reality. I love to explore one’s interiority and find ways to portray it on screen through cinematic means.
Through the years, I’ve been approached to work on films that tie family and immigration. I’m not an immigrant therefore I’m very careful about the projects I accept. Two of my future projects have these topics, one is a very personal feature portraying a mother/daughter relationship and the other is an adaptation from a book (Omar Sy, if you’re reading this, I have a role for you!).
I was developing the project about the mother and the daughter when Carmine and François approached me to work with them on Fanmi. Fanmi felt like a good place to explore that relationship. It really helped me deepen my work and thoughts.
Carmine: Ambitious women, may they be artists, lawyers or entrepreneurs, are characters I still think we don’t see enough of on-screen, especially when they are black or BIPOC. I think seeing nuanced portrayals of these driven women, revealing their strengths but also their weaknesses and flaws is something I will always be keen on exploring.
As a second-generation immigrant, immigration remains a theme that interests me, particularly when it comes to the relationship between generations of immigrants, like Martine and Monique in our film.
I am curious to explore how the world view of someone born in Canada for example can differ from the world view of someone born in a country they had to leave, and yet how these two individuals can still share a lot of similar issues and traumas.
How do you dovetail your talents when you collaborate on a short like this?
We didn’t split up the tasks, we went through every step together. It was all about giving each other space to create, listening to one another. If one director wanted another take, we’d do another take. We ultimately both wanted to be happy with every decision that was made, if that meant trying something different and exploring more, then that’s what we did.
How has the festival circuit helped your film?
Our film is quiet and nuanced, which is not the type of films that are often put forward so the festival circuit really helped us reach our audience, confirming that there is an appetite for these types of intimate stories.
We were fortunate enough to have the film travel all over the world in festivals like Off Courts Trouville, TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival), Aspen, Palm Springs, Indy Shorts, Curta Cinema and Izmir Short Film Festival to name a few. The film won several awards including an Oscar-qualifying award at Provincetown International Film Festival!
When we finished the film, after the 7 years it took to make it happen, after all the hard work our cast and crew put into it, we told ourselves we would be happy no matter the outcome so we’re over the moon to see the film get an award like this!
Finally, what are you most proud of about this short?
Ultimately, we make films to share a little bit of our humanity with the world so it means a lot to us when audience members reciprocate the sharing by telling us about their own experiences.
We find that many people reached out to us admitting they recognized themselves in the film and gained some insight on their relationship, not only with their mothers, but with whoever served as a parental figure in their lives.
