14/08/2024 - The Swiss-based Belgian director discusses climate change and midlife crises, and how they relate to his new six-episode series

(© Pierre Daendliker)

The first two instalments in the six-episode show Endangered Species [+see also:
series review
trailer
interview: Bruno Deville
series profile], the new series by Swiss-based Belgian director Bruno Deville, has premiered out of competition at this year's Locarno Film Festival. It is now available online on the Play Suisse platform until September, after which it will be aired by the Swiss national broadcaster, the major producer of the series, in early 2025 on its different channels.

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Cineuropa: How did the idea for the show come about?
Bruno Deville: I started working on the idea in 2017. I took a photo on 25 December in the mountains with no snow, with the grass all green and the sky blue, and it was 18 degrees. Global warming is right under our noses. There's a lot of talk in the press about glaciers retreating and melting, but also many low-altitude resorts closing down because there's no more snow. That was the starting point for the series. What's more, I had a strong desire to film comedians who shine in French-speaking Switzerland and elsewhere, too, such as Thomas Wiesel and Marina Rollmann, with whom I'd already worked on another project. I found it astonishing that these folks, with their relevant view of the world, hadn't yet been cast in more substantial roles. I wanted to shuffle them around a bit and put them in a series where they would be real characters, and not just [used for] gags.

What were the most important points when developing the script?
Léo Maillard, Marina Rollman and I started to develop a story around this starting point, which was how we could talk about climate change on the one hand and personal change on the other. We thought we could talk about it in an intimate way, with people who are in the middle of a midlife crisis and who are trying to find their way in life. It all started with the couple, Victor and Tiffany, played by Vincent Veillon and Emilie Chariot. We were looking to merge the intimate and the objective. Does external change have to come first through internal change? That's where we also took an interest in a group of men who are involved in personal development and who are trying to find out how they could change in the face of today's world.

How many autobiographical elements did you include in the story?
Quite a few. I've done a bit of personal development myself, and I always find it very interesting to do such things because, when you do it, you always look at yourself in a very cynical and critical way, and you feel a bit ridiculous. Doing this kind of test, getting naked in front of others, walking on fire, shouting out all your anger… Afterwards, you generally feel transformed. It changes the people around us, it changes the family around us, it changes our relationships with our friends, and maybe it changes the world a little, too. So, yes, there's a lot of my own experiences, but also those of Léo Maillard and Marina Rollman. We're human beings in crisis, I think, in a world in crisis, and we're all looking for meaning.

The three of you wrote the script together. Was working as a group a big challenge?
Working as a group is vital for a series. It's several hours of fiction, so it's like three feature-length films of an hour and a half, cut into six episodes. It was a very demanding job, given that the idea was to make an ensemble series with lots of characters, and therefore lots of intertwining narrative threads. I think you're always more intelligent with several brains thinking together. Teamwork is great. Working with other scriptwriters gives you a mirror; it helps you sort out ideas quickly. It's very creative to work with several people.

This isn't the first series you've made. What do you like in particular about this format compared with features?
I think that for several years now, series have been much more than mere formatted, studio shows. Jane Campion made a series called Top of the Lake, which I loved, for example. I wouldn't be surprised if Quentin Tarantino made a series. I saw the Cohen brothers made one, and Scorsese made one. The great filmmakers of this world like to tell stories that allow them to explore characters and worlds in greater depth. There is now a whole range of series on offer, from superhero, studio-based and highly formatted shows to ones by independent auteurs.