After winning the 2018 Audience Award in BRIFF for Holy Tour [+lee también:
tráiler
entrevista: Meryl Fortunat-Rossi y Val…
ficha de la película], a documentary about Tour de France aficionados co-directed by Méryl Fortunat-Rossi, Valéry Rosier is back on Brussels ground to present his latest fiction film, which he co-directed with Farellia Tahina Venance this time round and which is screening in the National Competition. Rano focuses on two grieving characters for whom the element of water, which is omnipresent in Madagascar, opens a window onto greater understanding of themselves and their trauma.

Cineuropa: How did this project come about?
Valéry Rosier: It stems from lengthy discussions I had with a childhood friend, Farellia Tahina Venance, who co-directed the film, who comes from Madagascar and with whom I talk a lot about spirituality and the things we can’t see. One day, she was talking to me about mermaids and about how most people on the island believe in those water spirits. I was intrigued, I don’t know why, so I decided to go and see for myself. The film actually forms part of a documentary investigation. From that point onwards, I imagined two characters: Macha, who comes from Europe, and Franco, who was born on the island. They’re both in some kind of denial over their grief. Their spiritual relationship with water helps them find a way to become more resilient and to grow up a little bit.

Does Macha represent a kind of western rationality towards the spirit world?
Yes, in the West we’ve rejected that sacred relationship with the invisible, and Macha is fairly reluctant to begin with. She starts off unwilling, but she slowly opens herself up in her determination to forget. They’re two characters who refuse to accept what’s absent for them, but in so doing, it’s as if they’re denying the existence of what was. Ultimately, they’re running away from trauma, but it soon catches up with them and hits them square in the face.

What does water represent in this context?
Water is omnipresent in the film, I think it’s in at least 80% of the shots. Firstly, because it’s set on an island, but it’s also to do with the mermaids. Rano means water in Malagasy. It’s practically a third character in the film, alongside Macha and Franco. Water is a consoling presence. For me, water also represents the feminine side of the two characters, a side which they have to learn to embrace as the story advances. Plumbing the depths of water is a bit like plumbing the depths of their souls: it’s an inner journey. It’s also a portal towards a new form of spirituality for the characters.

How did the film shoot go?
We shot as a small, mixed team, with people from Belgium and others from Madagascar, with some who were experienced and others less so. There were a few surprises along the way, a few unforeseen incidents, so we had to deviate from the plan. To begin with, I resisted a little, but I soon ended up accepting being swept along by the current. I’m referring, for example, to the very strange noise made by insects every day on the island, from sunrise to sunset. Which is something we didn’t anticipate. Our sound engineers were able to adapt and, in the end, in the editing phase, we used their ear-piercing noise to create tension. The film doesn’t resemble what it was when it was first written; it’s the result of that process of acceptation and of going with the flow.

How did you go about casting the film?
Mara Taquin plays Macha; I’m a big admirer of her work and she has a huge personality. She accepted the film even though we didn’t have a fixed screenplay, when she knew there’d be underwater scenes, with sea creatures… She invested a lot of herself in the role; we talked about her character and about the film a lot during the shooting process. She was the only professional actress, so she gave a kind of structure for the other actors who she advised, supported and encouraged. It’s even more impressive when you think that it’s not always easy to strike the right tone when you’re working with non-professional actors. We held the casting process on the island, and we had to contend with quite a few setbacks, and last-minute withdrawals in particular. But we also met some incredible people who really shook the script up. This was the case for the Madagascar Whale Shark Project team, for example, which is led by an incredible young Belgian woman, and which we incorporated into the story quite substantially, even though it wasn’t written that way to begin with.

What was most important to you, when making this project?
Rano isn’t really like the films I’ve made before, in terms of my fiction films or my documentaries. I wanted to make a more sensorial film, a slower one too, and water allowed me to do that. It was a really thrilling challenge to take up, and I’m really happy to have been able to attempt it.