In our second week highlighting the 64th New York Film Festival, we turn our attention to Emmanuel Marre.

His latest feature, A Man of His Time, has proven a critical sensation in France, depicting a government minister’s gradual involvement with his administration’s collaboration with Nazi Germany. Years earlier, Marre filmed another sort of political parable in Castle to Castle, a short film about a scholarship student at the prestigious Sciences Po who is researching the French presidential election.

Castle to Castle came together quickly. Marre claims “the film began two days before filming…. a week before the first round of the 2017 presidential election.” While his original idea revolved around a Sciences Po student who would be tempted to vote for Marine Le Pen, the film evolved into a more nuanced portrait of intergenerational divides and the difficulties involved in care-taking after Marre invited his mother to act in the film upon sensing that there was something special in how she and his main actor, Pierre Nisse, had to talk and listen to one another. Soon, the film’s political commentary became ingrained in the dynamic between Nisse, the student/caretaker, and his landlord/ward, played by Marre’s mother.

“It’s mainly a movie about two beings who meet. On two solitudes that support and support each other. A film about two beings who spend time together and listen to each other.” EMMANUEL MARRE

Marre’s visual approach to Castle to Castle changed in much the same way his script did. After his Super-8 camera crashed while filming a Macron rally in Bercy, he decided to film back-up footage on his iPhone. The rest of the production followed suit, and the final edit, which alternates between hazy, delicate Super-8 footage and harsh, immediate iPhone footage, captures the distinct temporalities present in Castle to Castle: between raucous voter groups and attentive, interpersonal relationships. For Marre, the film became about “how beings listen to each other, how political discourse cuts itself off from human speech.”

Emmanuel Marre was born in Paris in 1980. He studied directing at the Institut des Arts de Diffusion in Belgium. His early short Le film de l’eté won the Prix Jean Vigo Award in 2017 and D’un château l’autre earned him a Golden Pardino at the Locarno Film Festival in 2018. More recently, his solo-directorial debut A Man of His Time proved a breakout hit at Cannes and earned the director a Best Screenplay Award at the festival.

Text written by Nicolas Pedrero-Setzer.