25/09/2024 - The Georgian-born, French-raised director discusses his crime-thriller debut and its tender undertones

(© Dario Caruso/Cineuropa)

Following the premiere of his debut feature, In the Name of Blood [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Akaki Popkhadze
film profile], in San Sebastián’s New Directors strand, Georgian director Akaki Popkhadze tells Cineuropa about shooting in his current home, Nice, the coexistence of violence and religion, and expressing love through cinema.

Cineuropa: At the film’s beginning, the parents speak Georgian to Tristan, but he responds in French. How does the decision to introduce the trio through different languages capture the experience of belonging to two places?
Akaki Popkhadze: At first, I wanted two Georgian actors to play the brothers, and I wanted some authenticity. The parents are [played by] Georgian actors. But all around me, every family is like this, splitting two generations between Georgian and French. This was a good trick for me to be more realistic in the scene.

Is Nice, where you filmed, your city?
Yes, being in my city made filming comfortable. I have lived there for 20 years, I know the nooks and crannies, and often the people who were just passing by while we filmed. The extras, guys and women, are only people I know, and everybody knows each other. It was like a family shoot. Even half of the crew were people from the film school I've already worked with. I think for a debut, it was the best possible thing, to be with people you know, in the place you know.

How mobile was the camera? How physical was the experience of filming?
We knew that we wanted a physical sense of shooting, with the camera moving all the time. We wanted the closeness. It was very physical for the DoP because I was not carrying the camera, but Justin [Vaudaux] was carrying it all the time. It was hard for him to run around and to physically go from one point of view to another within the defined space.

What about the visual style of the distorting wide lens?
We used very wide-angle lenses because you can go up very, very close to the characters. I wanted the audience to be in Nice with the protagonists. But it’s very intrusive for the actors because you have this huge lens in your face, forcing you to act in a way that you are not used to.

Could you tell us more about Tristan’s devotion to religion and how you associate with it?
Religion is a very big part of my life. As you know, most Georgians are Orthodox, and most of them go to church – so did I, every Sunday. Growing up, I had some doubts, and while I was on a religious path, I ended up making movies instead. In this film, I divided parts of myself into three vectors – family, religion and violence – between the two brothers and the mother. It was like dividing myself into three different lines: sometimes they meet, and sometimes they diverge. It’s all everyday conflicts, and I have this conflict inside of me, too, so I tried to show it on screen. What is it like to be religious and violent at the same time? The issue is that people, myself and the characters, have a communication problem. That’s why they aren’t as expressive – a bit like Bresson’s models, you know?

How much of that do you think is tied to the role of masculinity?
The film may be more about toxic masculinity than real masculinity. But who knows, what even is real masculinity? I don’t know. I grew up in a very masculine environment, and I didn’t know French very well, so I didn't have many friends. I had only masculine role models I looked up to: the priest, my friends from school, and people at judo practice. The only female character around was my mother, like in the film.

One scene in particular is very moving, where the two brothers sit in silence for a long time, and then one of them says: “I felt like I didn't have a brother.” This line says so much because it seems like we're in their private world.
I have a younger brother, too, and we have quite a difficult relationship. But this was my declaration of love to him. For some reason, I can't say, “Hey, brother, I love you,” to him. It seems so easy, but I’ve never said it out loud. So I am saying it now, in the film, through the characters.

I do similar things, but by recommending films to my mother, instead of telling her, “I love you.”
Exactly. I think cinema is my way to tell people that I love them.