in his new film Ivan Calbérac evokes “a wound of pride” which is also “a wound of the heart”

Every day, a personality invites itself into the world of Élodie Suigo. Wednesday April 24, 2024: the director, screenwriter and writer, Ivan Calbérac. His new film: “Never confess” is released today, with André Dussollier, Sabine Azéma and Thierry Lhermitte.

Ivan Calbérac is in turn director, screenwriter, producer and writer. It is writing and the desire to tell his stories which are at the origin of his encounter with television, theater and cinema. Her first feature film, “Irène”, released in 2002, which revealed Cécile de France, attracted the attention of the public and critics. Subsequently, in 2006 he will produce a musical: We are going to love each other with Julien Boisselier, Alexandra Lamy, Mélanie Doutey, Gilles Lellouche, The student and Monsieur Henri in 2015, a play became a film or even The tasting in 2022. Today, his new film is released: Never confess with André Dussollier, Sabine Azéma and Thierry Lhermitte. It’s the story of a couple made up of François and Annie. François is a retired general. She notably raised her children. She was the wife of. And François will realize when he comes across letters that she cheated on him around forty years ago.

franceinfo: Never confess is really, once again, a look at the couple. Is that what touched you?

Ivan Calbérac: Absolutely. I admit that it’s a bit of my obsession. There, what touches me is that he is a man who is over 70 years old and he is still very much in love with his wife, 50 years later. And I find that beautiful. When he discovers these letters which date back 40 years, it is a wound of pride, but it is also a wound of the heart. And as he loves his wife, he is not going to take revenge against her, but he will still find a way to take revenge by looking for the former lover, who was a friend of his at the time, to try to go beat the shit out of him 40 years late.

In this film, we realize how much it also speaks about us, whether in the apprehension of everyday life, in habits, in how to avoid having the impression of always experiencing the same emotions and of losing the feelings we have towards others. Was that also what you wanted to show in detail?

“I want to show that our hearts don’t age. Even if our bodies age, we still have an adolescent heart.”

Ivan Calberac

at franceinfo

You can be jealous at any age. You can fall in love with someone again at any age. We can love each other at any age. And the film shows this, that despite the passage of time, in fact, we are still adolescents in our feelings. Jealousy, which is a feeling that we usually keep quiet, is someone who experiences it fully. So it’s exhilarating to see someone jealous go completely crazy because they are a little crazy for us. And obviously, he will experience nightmare after nightmare. This is the principle of comedy. But this whole story will at the same time lead him to humanize himself, to evolve. This is also what makes the story strong.

When you were little, you wanted to be an cosmonaut. And then there is that moment when, because you are a child of a bohemian family, you see your parents interpret The bourgeois gentleman. Something happens in that moment that you carry with you for a very long time. After all your studies, you obtained a master’s degree in mathematics, a DESS in communication management, what made you want to switch to television and cinema?

I had already been writing since I was little and I was passionate about cinema. I bought all the magazines, I collected the cards, I saw all the films. And it’s true that my parents gave me a taste for theater because they took me there a lot, they also ran a small theater club at school for a while and that was a real game changer. In mathematics, I met someone who was doing a cinema degree. I did not even know that it existed. I told myself I would sign up at the same time. And then one thing led to another, I dared. As I was already writing a lot, I started with my first short films, then I made Irene which was nominated for the Césars and that really launched me into the profession.

Everything you do is always based on one thing, and that is hope. I feel like that says a lot about who you are. Are you happy today with the man you have become with this childhood from which you have only kept the best, especially education?

Yes, I am happy. Finally, happiness is always something that fluctuates. I’m not happy every day, but I’m happy doing the job I love.

“I want to convey hope because we live in a world that lacks a lot of it.”

Ivan Calberac

at franceinfo

When you watch the news, it’s hard. So if for an hour and a half, we can offer people a moment of laughter, lightness and hope also because in my films, often, the characters change, they become humanized, they improve. And even if in life we ​​have difficulty doing that, well it can inspire us. And it’s true that if we come out lighter… There, I see in the theaters that there’s a lot of laughter and people leave with a huge smile. I feel like I did my job.

You’re a bit of a tightrope walker, which means there’s always this balance between seriousness and humor. Was it humor that kept you standing and facing life? To keep moving forward too, to believe in it?

Humor is a fantastic weapon, it allows you to gain distance. In fact, humor is drama in hindsight. And when we take a step back, things immediately get better. When we laugh about it, there is a phrase that I love from Spinoza which says: “Since you laughed at me, I never get bored“. That’s it for me! I try to laugh at myself, I try to laugh at what happens to me. I don’t succeed every day! It’s almost a lifestyle and what’s more it’s It’s my job. My job is also to find things that will make people laugh and not only because in the film, there’s not just that. there is something deeper that emerges, but the basic idea is above all to laugh and laugh as much as possible.

So you are a total textual obsessive. You like to write, write, write. There is also theater there at the moment.

Yes, absolutely. I am preparing a piece for the Avignon festival called Like and which will be performed in January in Paris. And then I have my piece Glenn, birth of a prodigy which resumes in September at the Théâtre Montparnasse.