We spoke with Swiss director Benoît Goncerut, who is presenting Be Boris [+lee también:
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entrevista: Benoît Goncerut
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Cineuropa: How did the idea for the film come about? Did Boris immediately agree to be your protagonist?
Benoît Goncerut: I've known Boris for a long time and, for me, he's always been a very cinematic figure, a real movie character in the way he moves, expresses himself, and in his lifestyle, which was already very punk at the time. I always told myself that if the opportunity ever arose, I would seize it to make a film about him. I started shooting the film with my iPhone with the aim of making a short film to present at an independent film festival. Boris isn't usually someone who opens up easily, but in this case, he was very generous in front of the camera. Then we made a second film, in the middle of Covid, a project aimed at audiovisual and theatre professionals in French-speaking Switzerland. The film was more polished, shot in professional conditions, and that gave me the confidence to go further. To answer your question, from the outset there was an implicit agreement that I didn't want to make a film about Boris, a classic documentary portrait. I don't think he would ever have agreed to that. The idea was to make a film with him. I have made many documentary portraits, and I have always wondered about the power relationship between the director and the protagonist. How far can a film be considered an “auteur” film, and at what point does it become a co-writing project? Boris has a much greater knowledge of cinema than I do. He spends his life reading books and watching films. I found it interesting that, at times, the roles could be reversed: that the protagonist could take the place of the director, or at least that the question of who was directing the film could be blurred. I really liked this idea of co-writing.

It must not have been easy to follow Boris, who has a rather unpredictable life.
That's true. But since we were a small, very agile team, with a cinematographer I was used to working with, we could adapt easily. And then we were in the middle of Covid, in a period of total uncertainty, which also influenced our state of mind. At that time, Boris had no home, no job, but he was supposed to go to Russia for a literary residency, to translate Russian works. For once in his life, he had something concrete. And then everything fell apart. The film's challenge was to find out whether his life was going to change and in what direction. I didn't want a classic narrative, a success story where everything gets better. On the contrary, I found it interesting to explore a more ambiguous trajectory, even a downward spiral. It's something you don't see very often, stories where things deteriorate over time.

The film is presented in different ways, as a feel-good movie but also as a mockumentary. How would you define the film?
It's complicated. On the one hand, it's not a real documentary in the traditional sense. On the other hand, it's not a completely self-aware mockumentary either. There's this constant ambiguity. It's also a bit like a road movie because Boris moves house a lot and the characters are always on the move. The film also draws parallels with Russian literature, with its anti-heroes who wander around, who are constantly on the run, often travelling by train, endlessly moving from place to place. I also read some of the books that Boris translates or works on, and I realised how deeply he is steeped in this literature. For me, it was important to go beyond a simple, somewhat caricatural portrait.

The film's humour is very distinctive. Boris isn't just funny, he's also very endearing. There's something melancholic, almost nostalgic about him.
Boris comes from a Polish family. His parents are political refugees, and I think humour was a means of survival for them. This kind of humour is very present in Polish culture. Boris is deeply influenced by this language, both through Russian literature and his Polish origins. I tried to transpose that into the film: this mixture of trash, comedy, but also something deeper, almost existential.