meeting with the director Louise Courvoisier, who will take the steps with her first feature film “Vingt Dieux”

Selected in the “Un certain regard” section, the young filmmaker completed post-production of her film a few weeks ago, shot at her home in the Jura, with non-professional actors.

This is the magic of Cannes: from Tuesday May 14 the stars of world cinema will parade on the Croisette, like Francis Ford Coppola who returns 45 years after his Palme d’Or for Apocalypse Nowbut also beginners who will walk the red carpet of the Palais des Festivals for the first time.

Louise Courvoisier is not entirely a novice at Cannes: in 2019, she won the first prize at the Cinéfondation with her short film Mano to Mano. Twenty Gods is his first feature film. This is the story of Totone, 18 years old, the son of a farmer in the Jura, who has to take care of his 7 year old little sister from one day to the next. To get out of it, he thinks about cheese, convinced that he can win the competition for the best county.

“I have the impression that our lives are at risk every moment”

On April 17, six days after the announcement of her selection, she was refining the sound of her film. In a cabin at the PolySon company, in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, with her sound editor, she listens again and again to noises that the viewer barely perceives. In front of her, images from the film, here, a calving scene: “It was the real birth of a calf !” says Louise Courvoisier, a somewhat documentary sequence, which only lasted seven minutes, so we didn’t have much time to record single sounds. “But this cow was brave ! Her name is Paillette.”. A predestined name for Cannes…

Next to the director, her sound editor Sandy Notorianni: “When we lack elements taken on set, we add additional sounds, taken on set, or sound effects or even taken from a sound library shared by many editors around the world”, he explains. A perfectionist, Louise Courvoisier believes that each step is crucial: “I have the impression that our lives are being played out at every moment during the making of the film, plus I really like the sound.”

Twenty Gods, it’s a family affair. The film was shot with non-professional actors and people close to the director: “My sister is a production designer, my brother is a designer, my mother and my other brother composed the music, which they played with my father who is also a musician.” Louise Courvoisier wanted to talk about the people who live in this territory of the Jura, where the peasant condition is not always easy: “It’s a fiction anchored in its territory, cheese. The county became a character in the film !”

“I can’t wait to see the actors walk up the stairs in evening wear !”

Director Louise Courvoisier

at franceinfo

At thirty years old, she confides that she could not imagine making films… and even less so finding herself in Cannes. A destiny which owes a lot to chance: Louise Courvoisier wanted above all to get away from her meadows, from the countryside. “I didn’t know anyone: I come from the deep countryside. It’s a bit of a coincidence: I grew up in the Jura, in a small village and I wanted to go as far away as possible. And now, I I want to come back. To go to boarding school, I chose a high school with a cinema option. Then I joined the Cinéfabrique in Lyon, I felt that perhaps I had things to tell and I discovered directing actors, it happened like that, a bit on its own. And it’s true that we’re not necessarily given the idea of ​​being a director where I come from. But I think that’s also what gives us an identity, knowing where we come from and what we want to say…”she says.

Friday May 17, Twenty Gods will be screened in the Un certain regard section, with, as a ritual requires, the rise of the steps on the red carpet, which Lousie Courvoisier is impatiently awaiting : “We won’t be able to bring everyone, because there are so many of us, but I can’t wait to see the actors in evening dress!”