Filmmaker Rebecca Zlotowski has spent the final fifteen years crafting a singular profession in French cinema. Whereas all her movies discover the invisible depths of human connection and expertise, she does so by completely different modes of expression and movie genres, usually eliciting sudden and uncooked performances from her stars. Her movies have premiered at prestigious movie festivals like Cannes and Venice, and have starred a few of the finest actresses of the period, together with Léa Seydoux, Natalie Portman, Virginie Efira, and, most not too long ago, Jodie Foster, who makes her French-speaking debut in Zlotowski’s most up-to-date movie, “A Non-public Life.”
Zlotowski, who’s of Polish-Moroccan descent, studied fashionable French literature at Ecole Normale Supérieure earlier than attending the French movie faculty La Fémis, the place she graduated from the scriptwriting division. Her commencement undertaking, the coming-of-age drama “Belle Épine,” premiered as a part of Critics’ Week at Cannes. For her efficiency within the movie, its star Léa Seydoux earned a César Award nomination for Most Promising Actress. Zlotowski and Seydoux teamed up once more for her second function, the disquieting romance “Grand Central,” which premiered within the Un Sure Regard part of Cannes and earned Seydoux the Finest Actress Award on the Lumière Awards.
Her third function, the Thirties-set drama “Planetarium,” starring Natalie Portman and Lily-Rose Depp, premiered out of competitors on the Venice Movie Pageant and obtained largely detrimental opinions. Her follow-up movie, the thought-provoking drama “An Simple Woman,” premiered on the Administrators’ Fortnight part at Cannes, the place it gained the SACD Award for Finest French-language Movie. Her fifth movie, “Different Individuals’s Youngsters,” premiered at Venice and earned star Virginie Efira the Finest Actress Award on the Lumière Awards.
Zlotowski’s newest movie, “A Non-public Life,” had its world premiere out of competitors on the 2025 Cannes Movie Pageant final Might. Half black comedy, half mystery-thriller, half marriage-remarriage romance, the movie stars Foster, who speaks fluent French all through, as a psychiatrist named Lilian Steiner whose life is thrown for a loop after the mysterious dying of one in every of her sufferers, Paula (Virginie Efira).
After a gathering with Paula’s daughter Valérie (Luana Bajrami), Lilian turns into satisfied her obvious suicide is definitely homicide, and begins investigating Paula’s widower Simon (Mathieu Amalric) with the assistance of her ex Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil). The result’s a queer little romp that explores psychoanalysis and hypnosis, desires and ghosts, previous lives and present ones, and the whole lot in between. For her efficiency within the movie, Foster grew to become the primary American to obtain Finest Actress nominations at each the César Awards and the Lumière Awards.
For this month’s Feminine Filmmakers in Focus column, RogerEbert.com spoke to Zlotowski over Zoom about working with Jodie Foster, the deep connection between psychoanalysis, hypnosis, and cinema, and the movie neighborhood in France.
This interview has been edited for readability and size.
For many Individuals watching this movie, the very first thing they wish to know is the way you labored with Jodie Foster. I at all times knew she spoke French, and her persona suits in so properly with the form of tales that you just inform which might be usually about ladies on inside journeys, and that’s very a lot what’s occurring right here.
It’s an inside journey, however with the storyline, as a result of I feel that I’ve by no means espoused the full European, like atmospheric, inside stuff. What was actually expensive to me is that Jodie is so choosy with the components she chooses, so everybody has been asking me what she seems to be like once you direct her, and people sorts of questions. The query shouldn’t be, why was I interested in her? As a result of everyone seems to be interested in her. The true query could be: why did she say sure?
And that is an fascinating factor, as a result of she is the form of actress and film maker, in a method, that simply creates an entire filmography, and she or he creates a sentence globally, with what she does. On the finish of the day, each movie could be one phrase on this sentence. I’m fortunate sufficient to be one phrase in her total filmography. It could be fascinating to know what it’s, what it means for her, and what it means in an American filmography, that at this level in her profession, this amazingly legendary actress decides to reap the benefits of her energy to talk French fluently. As a result of she’s not solely talking French, she’s talking French like a French individual, which is, in a method, a thriller firstly of the thriller itself.
So, for all these causes, I wished to work along with her. I might discuss for hours about how she constructed the cinéaste that I’m, the cinephile that I’m, and one way or the other, the girl that I’m as effectively. However it might be extra fascinating to know why she determined to play this half at this second in her life.
I cherished how queer the movie was, and she or he has been very guarded about her queerness. I feel as a result of, even immediately, it’s onerous to be out and open and be a large star and be queer in Hollywood. I like that she embraced that a little bit bit on this movie, just like the sequence the place she’s within the tuxedo. The styling of that’s so erotic. It additionally flashes again to Marlene Dietrich and the entire historical past of girls in tuxes. Was that at all times within the script?
[Laughs] Really, it was not. I really feel like, to not keep away from your query, Jodie Foster has mentioned so many occasions, that if you wish to know her, you’ll have to look at her motion pictures. So there are undoubtedly clues and keys, once more, the language of the movie, which is so childishly psychoanalytic. You have got stairs, you have got keys, you have got doorways that open to her character. This tuxedo second, the place she is meant to be a person in a previous life and says she impregnated somebody, is unquestionably playful within the movie. It’s to not be taken critically, however we take critically the spiral she is on, the place she is plunging and delving in a method.
I like one in every of her photos. I don’t know who the photographer is, nevertheless it’s in black and white. She has a really modern look, and I feel she’s sporting a go well with. She usually wears fits as a result of she’s not into…I imagine that she has an magnificence that isn’t related to the style trade proper now. She’s even rejecting that in a method, and the truth that we might play on completely different genres and completely different personalities, and it was simpler to play the alternative. So, after all, she could be in a tuxedo within the Forties. It grew to become an outfit and the silhouette that I actually wished to play with at this second within the movie. But it surely doesn’t imply that a lot. It’s not a popping out within the film, I’d say.
You’ve talked about in previous interviews that Jodie’s character, Lilian, and her ex-husband, performed by Daniel Auteuil, have an Previous Hollywood, marriage-remarriage, virtually screwball comedy sense to it. I questioned if there have been movies that you just had been impressed by for that thread, or the way you constructed it out? The movie is being marketed as a thriller, however that massive thread of them coming again collectively as a pair can also be very outstanding.
Love tales at all times, in a method, overwhelm the opposite storylines in a movie, as we all know. As quickly as you see somebody kissing, you’re like, when are they going to try this once more? The place are they going to have intercourse at this second? Typically you roll the cube since you don’t know whether or not the couple’s chemistry will work. If it doesn’t, you might want to be armed to have one thing else, have one thing else within the movie. However in our case, it was very uncommon to witness the chemistry between them. I used to be so pleased with that that I made a decision to shoot different scenes, and my editor was like, okay, simply shoot extra. They simply improvised a bit.
There are such a lot of movies that now we have in our ears and in our brains in relation to the remarriage comedies that Stanley Cavell wrote about. For this movie, there have been movies like “The Skinny Man” with William Powell and Myrna Loy, or the 80s TV collection “Hart to Hart,” the place a pair is investigating, not only a couple getting remarried within the movie, like in “The Philadelphia Story.” Stanley Donen’s “Charade” was undoubtedly a key movie as a result of it was set in Paris and starred two legendary American actors, Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. The faux murder-mystery investigation we all know is only a bubble within the movie; it’s only a pretext for it.
So, musically and narratively, and even with the Parian postcards, I used to be most impressed by the Stanley Donen movie. However I’m keen on these movies. I’m keen on these movies as a result of often these are those that performed the most effective with the style, and the truth that the ladies in them weren’t simply sluts, however might be empowered within the couple. As a cinephile and as a lady, I discovered them tremendous attractive and fashionable.
This movie additionally jogged my memory, in suits and begins, of “Planetarium,” in that each discover esoteric, internal realms that aren’t essentially revered. “Planetarium” has Thirties seances (which might be taken critically), and on this one, it’s hypnosis (that Lillian doesn’t take critically). Jodie identified in her NYFF Q&A that Freud began with hypnosis after which deserted it and even now hypnosis is usually regarded as one thing for quacks.
In each movies, you allow it as much as the viewers to determine the right way to really feel about them. When did you begin being focused on these esoteric methods of making an attempt to know humanity?
On this movie, I judged each psychoanalysis and hypnosis, and typically I mistreat them. However, you understand, now we have to know that these two languages—psychoanalysis and cinema, and even the third one, hypnosis—had been born in the exact same age. Their origins are in the identical decade, primarily within the early nineteenth century. There’s a dialogue between the science of ghosts, desires, fantasies, denials, compulsions, and all of the cool stuff that makes movies a beautiful nation to remain in and reside in. So, let’s use all these instruments.
As an individual, I’m not that related to the esoteric, however my scriptwriter was. It was fairly stimulating, as a result of we’d discuss, and I’d be like, “Okay, so that is bullshit.” And she or he could be like, “Completely not.” And I used to be like, “What? Okay, so that you’re loopy. Let’s have one other glass of wine.” I believed that since day one, she was making enjoyable of it, and she or he was completely nuts. I like that, as a result of I feel the truth that we’re not judging, ultimately, on the finish, the opportunity of curing with these methods. The purpose is about the way you create a picture, how one can reinvent creativeness, and how much world you wish to delve into together with your movie.
I really feel that as we’re speaking of a disaster, of a lady who’s in her 60s, there’s one thing that was tremendous joyful and valuable to make use of these languages, as a result of they had been born on the identical time. I like to see them talk, and I’m keen on the probabilities for motion pictures to dig into the invisible.
You talked about ghosts, and so clearly, I have to carry up the dybbuk of all of it. You had an important reply on the New York Movie Pageant about how, in a method, the movie’s about Lillian being possessed, or being haunted by Virginie’s character. When did the dybbuk come into the script?
It got here from Jodie. That is a part of the very deep connections that we had in prep. As a result of, actually, Jodie might have mentioned, “Okay, I just like the script, however let’s rewrite it collectively,” and I’d have mentioned sure, however she didn’t. In the future, she despatched me a passage from a textual content she was studying by a French Rabbi who’s fairly well-known right here, Delphine Horvilleur. The textual content was about Romain Gary (whose pen identify was Émile Ajar), and the concept of the dybbuk. She thought it might be fascinating for us. And it turned out to be the important thing to the complete film.
In fact, Paula is the dybbuk of Lilian Steiner. The dybbuk is, for Jewish folks, what occurs when you haven’t completed your life, or once you died brutally, and it’s not completed, it’s not over. You possess and hang-out, perhaps properly, or perhaps not properly, another person to reside by them. To be sincere, since you talked about “Planetarium,” I really feel that, in a method, I’ve been haunted by the ghost of “Planetarium” on this movie. And as you understand, “Planetarium” was actually not an enormous hit.
I used to be damage, however I used to be not shocked by its reception, as a result of one way or the other I knew it was a form of nightmare I wished to share, and I really feel that “A Non-public Life” stands out as the dream I wished to share. The viewers is so conscious of the whole lot you craft that they know that even when Natalie Portman and Lily-Rose Depp had been great and intensely good at these events in Paris within the Thirties, it was nonetheless a nightmare. It was one thing very painful. It was full of tension. I really feel that the viewers knew and understood it was going to be that, they usually didn’t need it. However “A Non-public Life” is the sunny, daytime model of what was nocturnal and full of tension in “Planetarium.”
You labored with Virginie Efira in your earlier movie, “Different Individuals’s Youngsters,” and, clearly, for Paula, you wanted somebody who would hang-out the entire film with out even saying something. Did she develop the character round her?
I developed the character a bit round her as a result of I actually wished her to be within the movie. In relation to casting, it needs to be significant. You may’t simply solid legendary names and excellent actors and actresses to make a success on the field workplace. It doesn’t work. It by no means works. The actors and actresses perceive that, they usually don’t need it. The one good cause to solid somebody is, does it add to the character within the movie? And I felt that, after all, like what you talked about, the truth that she could be so haunting as a result of she has this superb display screen persona.
There’s additionally the place she has within the trade, the truth that she’s a large star. When you’ve got a personality who seems in a single or two sequences and has to hang-out the complete movie, you’d higher have somebody everybody is aware of and can always remember, as a result of it creates the stress we love. After which Virginie has this particularly non-melancholic character, in order that was good for the half. As a result of if somebody could be very darkish and melancholic after which they die by suicide, it’s a bit extra anticipated. However if in case you have somebody like Virginie, who’s so sexually advanced and sunny, and she or he dies by suicide, you’re going to analyze that.
Then you possibly can add one other layer: this was my sixth function, and now I wish to solid folks I wish to have drinks and dinner with, people who find themselves a part of the household I wish to create. I do this increasingly more. I work with the identical folks as a result of I like them, they usually encourage me as effectively.
Let’s speak about Mathieu Amalric, who consistently defies what you suppose he’s going to be as an actor. Like on this, at first he’s a grieving husband, so that you suppose he’s going to be unhappy and wonderful, after which he turns into such a chunk of shit.
You realize, my distributor mentioned, you solid Mathieu Amalric, so now we all know he did it, as a result of the man is unquestionably tremendous darkish within the movie. One thing value discussing, which was bizarre, is that the solid shouldn’t be solely actors, however they’re additionally administrators. Mathieu is a director. Jodie Foster directed motion pictures. Daniel [Auteuil] directed motion pictures. Even Luana [Bajrami], Virginie’s daughter within the movie, and she or he’s solely twenty-three or twenty-four, has already directed 4 movies.
And, after all, Frederick Wiseman. I had a lot stress on me. Like, with Mathieu. He’s very choosy. I wished to fulfill with him about “Planetarium,” however he wasn’t even doing conferences on the time as a result of he wished to direct. And now I do know why he’s so choosy with the components. He likes it when he will get to play. Like, there’s this small sequence the place he pretends to be a robber within the movie. One minute, we think about that he might have robbed Lillian within the evening. I keep in mind capturing that second, and he was so infantile and joyful to try this. I understood. It’s as a result of he needs to direct. In any case, he needs to maintain time to direct, and if he’s appearing, he’ll do it on a regular basis. I feel he bought together with Jodie as effectively. He made Jodie snort lots. He was very joyful on the set.
Whenever you say he’s a chunk of shit, there’s undoubtedly a facet of the movie that I don’t utterly develop, as a result of it’s fairly hidden within the movie. However Virginie Efira is named Paula as a result of the film’s storyline resembles George Cukor’s “Gaslight.” So in our movie, now we have Paula, her aunt, and the truth that her husband has been gaslighting her for some time and main a double life. I really feel like he’s so Cukor-ish in a method, very very similar to Charles Boyer in “Gaslight.”
Are there any ladies who both impressed you to change into a filmmaker or whose movies you suppose folks readers haven’t heard of or that they need to hunt down?
Sure, so many. I’d say Jodie Foster, after all. There’s undoubtedly one thing that occurred with the emergence of Kathryn Bigelow and Sofia Coppola for us, as a result of they provided new representations, not solely of their storylines but in addition in the way in which they regarded and the folks they had been. They modified the concept we, as younger cinephiles, had of what feminine administrators might be. Kelly Reichardt is expensive to me, and Andrea Arnold is, too.
In France, I’ve so many, they usually’re like, I’m fortunate sufficient to be buddies with a lot of them, like Céline Sciamma and Alice Diop. I additionally love Justine Triet. I really feel that there’s a powerful dialogue between Justine and me. We trade actresses typically, like Virginie Efira, who was in two of Justine’s movies and two of mine. “Sibyl,” from Justine, is absolutely near “A Non-public Life,” in a method. In some way, it’s like conversations that now we have.
I’d say there’s a wave of feminine administrators in France that I completely really feel solidarity with. And it’s not solely as a result of we’re ladies who make movies that I really feel strongly near them. It’s as a result of I feel that they’re actually, actually good administrators. Additionally, one other individual I’d say is tremendous important to me is Susan Sontag. Pondering of Susan Sontag is at all times very, very inspiring for me.
It’s superb that there’s a technology of girls popping out of France making movies folks wish to see. There’s a neighborhood there, too, supporting one another. Cinema popping out of a neighborhood is so essential.
We’re a small nation, so there’s a sociological side to it as effectively. All of us reside in the identical metropolis, largely. We reside in Paris. It’s actually centralized. However there’s additionally a cause there are such a lot of feminine administrators in France. It feels good to be a director in France, whether or not you’re a man or a lady. It feels good since you’re entrusted with one movie, not ten. In fact, it’s not the identical once you’re a lady, once you see the numbers, and it’s at all times not the identical.
There are two temperatures: the one that you just really feel and the one that’s actual. The one that’s actual is that the battle shouldn’t be fucking over. It’s completely not finished. However there’s undoubtedly a political assertion in France that the cinema mustn’t solely be an trade but in addition an artwork. So we’re entrusted to make motion pictures. However the problem now could be to remain there and the posterities of the movies. So all of the festivals should be in step with that political assertion, and we’re simply combating. We’re simply right here.
