30/08/2025 - VENICE 2025: Freedom doesn’t come cheap in the French director’s new feature, but it’s still worth all the trouble

(© 2025 Fabrizio de Gennaro for Cineuropa - fadege.it, @fadege.it)

In her latest drama film, At Work [+see also:
film review
interview: Valérie Donzelli
film profile], shown in Venice’s main competition, actor-director Valérie Donzelli follows a man who decides to stop when everyone else is still running. A successful photographer (Bastien Bouillon) becomes a struggling writer, trapped in a series of odd jobs. Nobody understands what he’s doing – but he’s determined. Mostly because he finally feels free.

Cineuropa: This idea that you can’t make money while making art, or writing, is going to ring true to many people. Why did it ring true to you?
Valérie Donzelli: What concerns me, and where I identified with the story [the film is based on Franck Courtès’s book], is the meaning that Paul wants to give to his life: this whole quest for meaning. He doesn’t want to betray himself. I also wanted to underline that making art isn’t just about being an artist; it’s about trying to transcend reality, or feed on it, about finding an answer to something that would be impossible to explain otherwise. It’s a state of mind we cannot control; it’s bigger than us.

We tend to think that not having much might be good for us. But now he spends all his time looking for odd jobs and ways to save some cash.
Not having money, as he says, complicates life in a singular way. It becomes an obsession to have to constantly count, to be deprived of everything, to live day by day with what you have, unable to spend more because you’ll never be able to fill that hole. It offers freedom, and at the same time, he suffers because of it.

It’s unfair, because it’s true that we don’t pay writers to write. He might get an advance, but it’s not a nine-to-five gig, because books take a long time to write. They require constant intellectual availability – inspiration doesn’t just come to you. It’s not what’s usually considered as “work”, and you’ll never manage to fill the gaps that the laws of the economy impose on your being. It’s a choice, his choice, but it also causes him pain.

It's intriguing that instead of offering a clear solution, you show… resigned acceptance, let’s say.
In the book, it ends like this, too – with someone saying: “How much do I owe you?” “45 euros.” I thought it was beautiful because it’s the truth, his truth, everyone’s truth. Often when you make a film, even if you were paid to do it, it comes out and you’re in a state of limbo. You don’t know if you’ll make another. It never really ends. But he’s found a balance in his new economic system. He manages to get out of what used to enslave him, but he still works illegally, in poverty, and survives thanks to his small network.

Paul’s dealing with so much external pressure. His father doesn’t like what he does, and nor does his ex-wife. His children are confused. And yet he presses on with his mission. There’s something scary – and inspiring – about him being so very determined.
Because he knows it’s his truth! He understands it, and nothing can change his path. He’s where he needs to be; it’s his vocation. People judge him for that, it’s true, but they also envy him. He’s free – he’s decided he’ll follow this path, no matter what others say. He’s put his foot down to fulfil a dream. 

I also experienced that when I was younger. I quit school and decided I wanted to become an actress. My father was very afraid for me. My mother was afraid for me. They’d always ask: “When are you going to act in a film?” When I finally did, they said: “When is the next one?” They were curious, but they also resisted it. But that’s the world for you, because there are always people who get on the fast train, embracing a more adventurous life. They get to experience its most violent, and also its most beautiful, aspects. I’m not judging anyone. Everyone has the right to live their life as they want, or can. But when someone decides to get out of that bourgeois system, and to do something surprising, it certainly annoys others.

There’s something extremely precise about At Work. Were you looking for simplicity because it mirrors his “bare minimum” existence?
I wanted to be totally sincere about what I know – it’s my point of view on the world. I didn’t want to cheat, not even for a minute. This film had to be honest. I looked for that all the time, everywhere – in every shot, in every detail on set. I needed it to be like an haute-couture dress: exquisite, but all the details are well hidden. There’s a lot of work behind it, but hopefully it looks simple, yes. And pure.