Yann Toderi is riding the success from the recent screening at London Rolling Film Festival of BALLS, the musical drama which was originally shot in 2018 and had its’ premiere in Geneva in 2019. Here he reflects on the movie and some of his experiences:
“I wrote the BALLS songs with an artist called Rym who wrote the songs that Corinn Springer is singing. She is Swiss and Syrian.
Rym came to Switzerland from Syria when she was very young, learned four languages and did the Berkley School of Music in Boston. She did the Eurovision Song Contest with a great song but now she takes care of her family and only wants to make music for films that matter to her and loved the film’s message. It was a blessing as the songs are the heart and soul of the movie.
I met Corinn when I was looking for actresses for my first feature, CARDIO, and couldn’t find the actress I was looking for. When I saw that girl in the subway, I knew it had to be her. I barely had enough time to give her my email and the door of the train closed. I never thought she’d get back to me – but she did. She ended up playing my love interest in that film.
But after seeing her sing beautifully for one scene in that film and improvising little moments of chemistry between us for some videos that my character would watch on his cell phone, I thought I should do a new film with her where we would be the two leads and have more spontaneous dialogues, a more heartfelt vibe and where we would sing. It planted a seed and when I had the idea of making a film about how music helps people with Tourette Syndrome I knew I had to do it with her. I wanted to fly her to London for a change (we just did NY) and emailed her. When she said “I moved there”, it thought it was fate. Now we are both back in Manhattan.
The way the Tourette Syndrome is portrayed is accurate and the fact that music helps is based on real people although Alex is fictional. The ‘BASED ON TRUE FACTS’ line at the opening made people think I suffered from it which is not the case, but I talked to people who deal with it daily and tried to be as realistic as possible.
We shot the street scenes guerrilla-style but not the rest of the film. The official budget is 100K. It was shot in a total of only 6 days but there were 3 days of reshoots after a first cut of the film.
My previous film, CARDIO, was shot in New York, it’s a very different film with storyboarded shots, a dark sense of humor, sex and violence but I always say that both films are me. I think you can talk about the crazy world we live in by either making an outrageous satirical film with unlikeable characters and make fun of them – or do a tender film that comes from the heart. I like both approaches but of course, it’s nicer to do a film like BALLS and have people in festivals tell you it was uplifting, inspiring and touching. I think we need hope right now.”
The film which was shot in London has now been screened at the London Rolling Film Festival after two NYC festivals and a sold-out premiere at the Geneva International Film Festival. It was sold out in two days like much bigger films with or by people like Jean Dujardin, Xavier Dolan or Costa-Gavras.
Yann’s first film CARDIO will be on Amazon Prime soon this April and he is about to release his first single SO WE SING. His Instagram is yanntoderi.
For more in Yann Toderi via IMDb, please go to
Yann Toderi – Biography – IMDb
For more on London Rolling Film Festival, please go to www.rollingfilmfestival.com
