A FOOD FOR THOUGHT FILM

The program Discoveries includes the film „The Lake“ of French director Philippe Grandrier, who is a guest of this year’s FEST. In Belgrade, he was reunited with the actress in his film, Natalia Rehorova, who came to FEST from Prague. This young actress has graduated on the acting conservatory in the Czech Republic. She has been playing in the theatre and on film in her country. The Lake has been her first international experience.

„Working with Philippe was wonderful. We filmed in Switzerland and France, the crew was an international one and I particularly enjoyed working with actors from Russia, although the other ones were very professional too. I would like to stress that this is a very strange and good film, intended for a selected audience. It’s a food for thought film“, says Natalia Rehorova.

The Lake is the third feature film of French director Philippe Grandrier, who came to FEST after having been awarded on the Venice Festival. Interestingly, this Frenchman, who was also an author of experimental and documentary films, has found its actors outside of the borders of his country.

„I was looking for a particular light on the faces of my characters and I found it outside of France. It was dictated by the plot of my film and Slavic people such as the Czech or Poles are definitely different from the French. Serbs seem that way too. It is a requirement of the camera. The second reason for that is the language of the film, both literally and indirectly. I needed actors who speak French, but a weird sort of French. I have looked for a dream sounding French language, if you know what I mean. It’s language we think is spoken only in dreams, or language which creates a dreaming like feeling in us. The whole atmosphere of the film is like a dream. I am very satisfied with the actors’ performance in the film, especially Natalie. In addition to her, we have actors from Russia and the Netherlands. After a long quest, I decided to work with Russian actors. I have travelled to Finland, Norway, Sweden… and finally, I decided to go looking for them in Russia. I met excellent actors there, done a few castings and ultimately choose three of them. During the shooting we had excellent cooperation, although it was hard to communicate with everyone in all these different languages. The on set language was English, namely I was the one who spoke English, which was then translated in Russian, Czech, Polish and Dutch. All the languages made the shooting of my film like a Tower of Babel, but this diversity has opened new thinking on the set and offered new solutions. But I haven’t learned a single word from all these languages. Or maybe I have. The words „DAVAJ“ and „HARASHO“, says Philippe Grandrier, Director of the film “The Lake”.