The surface glamor and beauty of Nice is peeled away from the off in Akaki Popkhadze’s debut feature “In The Name Of Blood” (“Brûle le sang”) which premieres in San Sebastian’s New Director section.
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“Nice is a city where the rich and the poor live side by side.” the director tells Variety . “The poor neighborhoods are just a few minutes by tramway from the center. No need to drive hours to see the dirt. I think the particularity of Nice is that poor people live surrounded by palm trees, beautiful landscapes, super cars, casinos, a seaside full of tourists and it can make people dizzy and give them the wrong life-goals. For me all this is just appearance.”
The opening shot tracks from a postcard scene of Nice’s curved bay out to show a chain link fence, the high rise apartments and the highway of an oft ignored side to Nice. From here a tale of violence, faith and family unfolds.
Produced by Sébastien Aubert and Leslie Jacob for Cannes-based Adastra Films, the film has pre buys from Canal+ and Ciné+ and is co-produced by Belgium’s Beside Productions, Georgia’s Gemini and Austria’s Elly Films with Urban Sales handling sales.
“From my very first meeting with Akaki, I was impressed by his determination. This film had to come to life, it was like a matter of life or death for him.” Aubert, Adastra CEO, told Variety . “There is always a risk in producing a director’s first film, but Akaki immediately had the spirit of a leader. He was both a demanding and attentive collaborator. I couldn’t be happier about his debut feature and I can’t wait to bring his upcoming project to the market (very soon).”
In the film, a member of the local Georgian community is murdered, mistaken for his boss, a Russian oligarch. His son, Tristan, played by co-scribe Florent Hill, who dreams of becoming an Orthodox priest, is left alone with his grieving mother. Into this turmoil steps Nicolas Duvauchelle’s (“A Decent Man”) character Gabriel, his older brother with a troubled past. Driven by honor and revenge, Gabriel and Tristan are drawn into the criminal underbelly of Nice, coming into the orbit of a local kingpin, played by the incomparable Denis Lavant (“Holy Motors.”)
What elevates the film from its traditional crime genre structure is the interplay of faith and family, with the mother, Catherine, portrayed by Ia Shugliashvili (“My Happy Family”), showing a longing for her sons to reconcile and live well. A good film is rarely one thing, and this debut is many, carving the complexity of hard lives into a multi-layered revenge thriller. Visually we are drawn close in to the action “Akaki and I chose to use only two lenses: an 8mm and a 12mm on a Super35 sensor. This enhances the immersive effect by being closer to the characters while fully integrating the environment.” Justin Vaudaux, the cinematographer, told Variety .
The story draws from the filmmaker’s upbringing where violence was part of life. “I was spending more and more time in the street, getting involved in fights, going to nightclubs on Saturday night and to the church on Sunday morning. Very contradictory, but this was my reality. For integration in the movie I divided my experience into three vectors. Faith for Tristan, violence for Gabriel and family for Catherine.”
Variety caught up with the filmmaker on the eve of Toronto and in the build-up to San Sebastian.
How did your personal experiences of cultural displacement and the challenges of being an immigrant influence the story of ‘In the Name of Blood’?
When I came to France, I did not speak the language. This made the first years of integration difficult. I think the incapacity of communication drew me to the violence. This was my only possibility of expression. And cinema acted as my only way to escape my reality. I literally learned the French language by watching TV all day long and by going to the cinema. The only benefit with the incapacity to communicate is that you become very good in observation of your environment and people around you. Whether for the two brothers or the mother, the movie is infused with this incapacity to express emotions and talk to each other.
Florent Hill and you met as children through the practice of judo. Does the martial arts focus on redirecting forces play a role in your storytelling?
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Usually I have visual desires, they come into my mind like flashes and I can’t get rid of them, until I get them down on film. Florent helps me to find the narrative path that will give me all the tools to focus only on the frame, and the picture inside of this frame. As judo is a matter of balance and Florent is the person with whom I can find that balance (between the visual and the narrative desires) I can say that being a judoka helps a lot.
You made some bold technical decisions with the use of very short focal lengths for your lenses. What led you to choose these lenses to contort bodies and reality?
I’m very comfortable with very short lenses. DP Justin Vaudaux has done a great job because every shot is always a choreography between actors, décor and the camera. I like working with these lenses because it forces me to move physically and find the best point of view in the space. I can go very close to the actors and intrude into their intimacy, be entirely with them often at the same eye level. I believe this helps to show some of their soul on the screen. At least, I hope it does.
It’s clear you are a lover of crime genre cinema. Were there key influences you kept returning to during the development of this project?
I’m attached to the ugliness of the world. I like to observe and try to explore the dark side of people. That’s why I like crime genre cinema very much, I think. For this movie one key influence was James Gray’s early work, basically three of his first films. A specific community, family troubles, immigration, crime… I can identify very much with him. I don’t know if the audience can feel it while seeing the movie but during the development of the project all this was in my mind.
Within the story of the two brothers, their mother plays a crucial role. How did you ensure that, although a secondary figure, she has a profound influence on the story and the brothers’ relationship?
I have a brother and a sister. But once in France I grew up only with my brother, my sister stayed in Georgia. So, I grew up in a predominantly male environment. As an altar boy, I only met priests, deacons and other altar boys. In the neighborhood where we lived, girls and boys never mixed. Then I did judo and, once again, the judokas, the coach, almost only men. I also worked as a security guard and again: only men. The only female figure I could cling to, observe and listen to, was my mother. It is for this reason that, in the film, the character of the mother is very important and to emphasize her importance even more she is the only female character. Catherine is a secondary character who influences the action. In the film, the “strong” men become little boys in front of their mother. Catherine is major in the family drama. By her words and behavior, she influences the actions of her sons.
You play with movement in this film, switching between fluid camera tracking and movement from within the frame, such as the journey of a truck or terrapins. Is this an influence from Judo or from somewhere else entirely?
I like movement. I wanted the movie to have continuous movement, handheld or with Steadycam but without blocking the horizontal line and some Dutch angles. I wanted to show the audience and make them feel the internal tumult of the characters and wanted them to be dizzy. To get a feeling that they can fall at any time. I think this shows the instability of the characters. Everybody tries to find a balance and to stay standing. Like in judo, which is all about balance, trying to stay standing, and not fall.
Also, judo gives an opportunity for the brothers to reconnect to each other physically in pain and sweat first, laying the groundwork to reconnect emotionally further in the movie in another scene.
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