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TROMSØ 2025

Fleur Fortuné • Réalisatrice de The Assessment

“En tant que cinéaste, il y a toujours des aspects conscients qu’on amène avec soi et des éléments inconscients”

par 

- La réalisatrice de clips musicaux française nous parle des composantes de son premier long-métrage, notamment de son talentueux trio d’acteurs

Fleur Fortuné • Réalisatrice de The Assessment
(© Sebastian Wilches/Tromsø International Film Festival)

Cet article est disponible en anglais.

Known for her stylish and compelling music videos (as one half of the duo Fleur & Manu), French director Fleur Fortuné recently turned to feature film with her debut, The Assessment [+lire aussi :
critique
interview : Fleur Fortuné
fiche film
]
. The dystopian sci-fi sees aspiring parents Mia (Elizabeth Olson) and Aaryan (Himesh Patel) undergo a psychologically tormentuous, weeklong, government-mandated test led by assessor Virginia (Alicia Vikander) to see if they are suitable for parenthood. The Assessment, which will reach German theatres on 3 April, recently had its Norwegian premiere at the Tromsø International Film Festival after world-premiering at Toronto.

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Cineuropa: One of the most interesting aspects of the film is the sort of psychosexual interactions between Virginia and the couple. At one point, it even veers into a twisted mother-daughter roleplay with Mia while she “tests” Aaryan in other ways.
Fleur Fortuné:
Virginia is a grown woman, so what’s disturbing is that she’s an assessor playing a kid – she’s using every tool she has to disturb Mia. With Aaryan, she can spot all of his weaknesses and use them against him – the fact that his scientific research is so important to him, for instance. But for Mia, Virginia can’t find an angle, so she turns to this roleplay – and in this, Mia is so happy that Virginia finally calls her “Mum”. It’s funny how others can be transported so easily into the process of parenting, even though it’s a grown woman playing a child. All of those aspects are interesting for an actor to play, but that creates disturbance for an audience.

Could you talk about working with this great trio of actors in order to cultivate this playful yet twisted set of dynamics?
A big part of the directing was casting them because they did a lot of the work. By casting, you make sure that you’re all on the same page. I knew that for the part of Mia, I needed someone who would bring the audience into the story and the emotional side. I knew that Elizabeth had that humanity, a very natural emotion – when she talks to you, even as a person, she has something that is very rare and generous. I saw her in Martha Marcy May Marlene a long time ago, and when we started developing, I was thinking about her. It’s tricky – I wanted someone a bit wild. I didn’t want the relationship of the couple to be cheesy. Himesh was quite difficult to cast because I wanted someone who could be a genius and who had this geeky side. He has a very natural sense of humour. At the same time, I didn't want him to look like the bad guy, the stereotype of this charming man.

As for Alicia, I really liked her for a long time from many parts she had done, like Ex Machina [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
making of
fiche film
]
, but also from her first, Swedish, movies, I knew she used to also play a lot of period parts. She has an approach to the characters that I find very interesting. When I talked with her, we were sharing contemporary art references, and I knew she used to be a ballet dancer. Very early on, we talked about the way she would perform a child because it's very challenging for an actor. She could be a bit ridiculous, but she's not trying to do a stereotype of a kid.

Do you feel like your role as a mother influenced how you approached this film?
My husband and I struggled to have kids, so I shared that with both Alicia and Elizabeth through Zoom. We were all in tears. It's a topic that is in every woman, and you’re going to live it in very different ways; it's very emotional. That's why it's hard. But right now, so many governments are trying to control that, so it’s not an easy question for us. It's our bodies. It's a big responsibility to create a life. In the story, a lot of what I've been through was there, but sometimes you are not really conscious of it. When I saw it in Paris for the first time with my family and friends, I was very emotional because I realised how much of me was in it. It's weird to say that because I carried the film for many years. It's the fact that I knew they were there in the room with me when I saw it. It’s funny, as my friends were crying because they knew that, but I hadn't really realised any of it before.

They recognised you in the film before you did.
As a director, there's always the conscious aspects you bring with you as well as the unconscious you. It’s the same thing while building a character: there is what’s upfront and what's at the “back” of a character.

You have worked a lot in art direction and music videos. Do you feel like your work in that space was preparing you for this film? Or do you feel like this was a completely new realm?
It was completely new. Narratively, it’s completely different because music videos are all about the concept, as it has to be catchy and interesting. Maybe that would be helpful when doing a trailer, but that doesn't create a story, or the film or characters, so you have to forget about that. From music videos, I know how to concentrate the budget and the things that are important in order to have impactful and meaningful images. But it's not like I'm very at ease on a set with 100 people asking me questions – that's scary for me and can be very hard for a first-time filmmaker.

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