“Kika”, an interview with director Alexe Poukine

May 18, 2025

Director Alexe Poukine wanted her first fiction feature, "Kika", to be "tender", and layered "like lasagna"

"Kika", an interview with director Alexe Poukine Bénédicte Prot

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Alexe Poukine is in competition at the 64th Critics Week of the 78th Cannes Film Festival with her first fiction feature, “Kika“, after several documentaries – including the multi-award-winning “Who Cares?“, where medical students and experienced care workers were put in front of actors portraying patients for some case simulations – and the mid-length film “Palma” – where she played the protagonist, inspired by her own life as a struggling mother, and which won the Jury Prize at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, amongst others.

“Kika“, whilst maintaining strong ties with reality and presenting a nicely fleshed set of characters evading all stereotypes (including real-life sex workers), transports the viewer, together with the endearing eponymous character (played by Manon Clavel), into a quirky universe terming with absurd and hilarious situations which makes for many laughs, but also touches with the warmth and humanity it conveys.

On writing a film which broaches so many different subjects

Alexe Poukine: “In the original script, there were so many layers, so Thomas Van Zuylen came in to cowrite with me, three years after I began, he suggested we should cut some of them, but I wouldn’t. It was very hard to keep all these layers, but for me, it was like making lasagna: I wanted the film to be dense, because I don’t like films that you can sum up easily – which is why I hate pitching. In fact, during the shoot, people sometimes stopped us on the street, to ask what the film was about, and each member of the crew was saying something different. It was very fun for me to see they didn’t think we were talking about the same thing. The only scenes we cut, during the editing, involved a rat.”

On the many rooms, flats, stairwells, etc. we visit throughout the film

“With the DOP Colin Leveque, we wanted Kika to always be in movement, so we mainly tried to find settings large enough to follow her all the time, because we wanted her to move all the time… What I like is that the only place where she can get intimacy is a hotel room, which is quite ambiguous because it’s not private – it’s yours for an hour, and you have to pay for this intimacy. All film long, she’s just trying to find a place, like in the book A Room of One’s Own. I was thinking about this all the time: how to find a place, your place, where you can just be.”

Plot

While pregnant with her second child, Kika faces the sudden death of her partner. Totally heartbroken, and broke, she sets her priorities straight : 1.⁠ ⁠make money fast 2.⁠ ⁠stay strong. Dirty underwear, dildos and neurotic parents will unexpectedly help.

Written by: Bénédicte Prot

Guest

Alexe Poukine