“ Emile BERLING

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I want to make a film that gets under your skin. One that creeps up on you without warning, that tightens your throat before you even realise it, until it’s too late.

My film tells the story of a man, Robert, who clings to a fading authority, unable to accept that the world is moving on without him. This film is about that very tension, that resistance to change,  the fear of the unknown that transforms into violence.

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I often write to probe what I do not understand: denial, anger, the madness of others, and certainly my own as well.

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I love characters who destroy themselves while thinking they’re defending themselves, tragedies where we know the outcome but still, despite everything, hope for a different outcome.

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I don’t want to demonstrate, I want to evoke a feeling. To create an underlying tension, a persistent discomfort. The camera follows the characters’ bodies closely when Robert is there, tracking the silences, the tenses, avoiding aestheticism. But when he disappears, the frame opens up: the young people breathe, his wife recovers, light and grace return.

When the worst happens, a scream. It's Cécile, the youngest, the only one to speak while the others look down. That scream, I want to hear it.