[INTERVIEW] EVA HUSSON, for Bang Gang

On the occasion of the presentation of GANG BANG at the Festival International du Film indépendant de Bordeaux last October, we had met with the director Eva Husson, who we had spoken with sincerity and enthusiasm of his intentions in the movie and her feminist engagement.

For what reasons have added to the title GANG BANG “A modern love story” ?

– Eva Husson : I wanted to talk about love stories of teenagers, who are at a time of building emotional and social aspects of their life. My characters are going through very hard things. I wanted to evoke the difficulties of the adolescent to cope with the otherness, and belonging to a group. Ado, I was not myself comfortable with the idea of the group, I wanted to belong to something bigger. It is a film that will make you think about how it finds its place, the limits that we are thinking of the self and how it takes to get there, even by means of a little bit extreme.

 You claim your feminism, do you want to pass on a message about this ?

E – H : For me, the question of the representation of the woman is fascinating and poorly treated on the screen. I did not want to show girls constantly victims, and wanted to get out of the storytelling classic in the hands of a patriarchal system. I wanted to talk about the sexual power of women that is built during adolescence, the way that the girls explore their desire and their sexuality and are authorised to do so, without beings taxed whores. It was important to reflect on the trajectory of the construction of these young girls and that they are out-grown this extreme experience. It is, of course, the question of power in GANG BANG : George will attempt to recover the control, but she takes it like a sleeve ! This story is not nefarious, it is above all sensual and soft. What interested me, is to go to the side a little thought, because to me, the role of cinema is there : push the limits.

So far, I don’t have a message to convey, I do not believe in the message. I speak humbly of my relationship to the world, what interests me, what seems relevant and fair. The film has several entrance gates and the different layers of obsessions personal, for which the sensitivity that can resonate without cleave, from one generation to the other.

What are your sources of inspiration ?

– E H : Kids (Larry Clark I was of course inspired (NB: the film addresses, in 1995, sexual relations, unprotected and HIV) , even if the teens of this film are younger than mine. In the 60s, there has been a change of paradigm of the liberation of the body, with the risk of getting pregnant. In the 90s, the fear of Aids was everywhere, and the Kids spoke very well the spectre of death for this generation. In 2015, thanks to medical advances, we no longer have to fear or to catch syphilis, or dying of Aids. Through the staging of this fiction inspired by this episode from 1996, I do not pretend to speak for a generation, but I force the line to show a trend.

Was it important for you to integrate new technologies in the lives of these teenagers ?

E – H : Yes, today, there is an overexposure on the internet via social networks, including our own self-exposure. I find fascinating the question of how to retrieve and loving the intimacy of this time.

The lack of involvement of the parents is responsible for the idleness of these adolescents ?

– E H : I would say that the parents are absent not because they are disinterested in their children, but because they do not wish to be intrusive, they allow them to breathe. It is always complicated for parents, full of good intentions to set the right limits within the framework of the family. Here, there are several situations in parenting.

Your actors involved in the scenario and was it difficult for them to turn naked ?

– E H : I have indeed faced the scenario to look in their eyes and they have helped me to get out of the standard vocabulary of the teenagers, but to give it colour of the moment. They were quite comfortable with nudity, anyway, they have not accepted with a gun to your head ; some I have even thanked her !

For what reasons have situated the history in this place of the edge of the sea, and in a time punctuated by disasters such as the train accident ?

E – H: The edge of the water, it’s a bit of a No-Man’s-land of the extreme, which reinforces my side, contemplative, almost obsessive, wanting to escape me. I wanted to show a city of middle class, do not pathos. We sent the script to several regions by the sea (Aquitaine and Normandy) and the Aquitaine region have agreed to help us and we toured to Biarritz.

About the context, I wanted to reinforce the impression of sensitivity and fragility of this phase of molting adolescent inner in comparison to this world accidentally moving around my characters.

Do you think that your movie is preachy ?

E – H : Not at all ! I am very upset to see that some people see a moral in my movie ! Gang Bang is not a movie voyeur, or preachy, and that, he had to make it clear to the producers. I don’t have the truth, but I put my film up to the height of my characters.

How do you feel about participating in the FIFIB that claims do not meet any of the criteria and whose core objective is to promote the independence of mind and freedom of creation ?

E – H : It makes me happy to have been selected in a festival in which the editorial line is clear with a pronounced taste for films that question and who can speak of subjectivities.

What does it mean to you to win a prize ?

E – H : What is important to me is that my film meets its audience. I don’t care about a little price, I think that having a price does not necessarily have to do with the quality of a film, but rather with a time and a jury.

NB LBDC : BANG GANG has not won any prize at FIFIB, but has won at the Festival des Arcs, the double prize of the Jury and youth Jury