“Out of Love”, an interview with director Nathan Ambrosioni and actress Camille Cottin

The 25-year-old French prodigy director Nathan Ambrosioni is premiering his third feature film, “Out of Love”, in the Karlovy Vary Crystal Globe Competition. The film, which marks his second collaboration with actress Camille Cottin after “Toni” (2023), depicts a somewhat reversed situation compared to what happened in this story centered on a mother of five who realises she wants to be something else too, and goes back to school.

Indeed, “Out of Love”, also starring Juliette Armanet  and Monia Chokri in the main grown-up roles, sees Cottin’s character, Jeanne, an independent and busy professional working as an expert in damage assessment, suddenly in charge of her depressed sister’s two children after the latter, unable to attend to their needs, drops them with her and vanishes.

We met the lovely duo formed by the director and his actress, who held hands throughout the first public screening at the leading Czech event, to discuss Nathan Ambrosioni‘s choice of topics, his remarkably restrained style and sparing but deeply precise and authentic dialogues, the nuances of the character ever so subtly played by Cottin, and the challenging situation she is faced with, whether she likes it or not.

On how it all started for Nathan Ambrosioni

‘[As a child], I was watching Miyazaki’s movies all the time, but one day when I was twelve years old, I saw this horror film called “Esther” [international title: “Orphan“], and it was quite the revelation for me… I became passionate about horror movies. I thought it was so cool to scare people, so I wanted to scare people, but then I wanted to make them laugh, and now make them cry, with Camille. I think Camille can make everybody laugh and cry.’

On the director’s seemingly uncanny choice of topics for a young male filmmaker, and on women and queerness in film

‘Camille is so inspiring. Working with her on “Toni” was such a pleasure, and it was so nice to see her work that I wanted more! […] I wanted to work with Camille again, I wanted to write for her, so the main character had to be a woman. Plus we’ve seen a lot of films with men, and I think that it is important to represent women and queer people in movies, because representation is everything. As a queer filmmaker, it’s so important to me to watch queer cinema and feel represented in movies. And I just feel more at ease working and being with queer people and women. It’s not like it’s a choice: the stories I want to tell always revolve around queer and/or female characters. […] Camille is political in a way. Throughout her career, she has chosen roles that were super important for representation too. As a queer person, it felt it was really important to see Camille being a lesbian in “Call My Agent!“‘

Camille Cottin on her character in “Out of Love”

‘Jeanne doesn’t have états d’âme, meaning movements of the heart. She doesn’t indulge in that. There’s a sternness about her: she was built as a strong antagonist when it comes to children in need of tenderness, of softness, of affection, of compassion. She’s practical, so she dives into the practicality of the situation, in order not to be overwhelmed. […] She’s completely invaded, and trapped, and I think that this gives her a sort of anger that she transforns into an energy of resistance. And she doesn’t speak a lot, even in a conversation where you could have intimacy, with her ex girlfriend for example, and it’s think it’s very enjoyable, as an actor, to have these two layers regarding a situation, what you say and how you feel, and to make them very distinct.’

Plot