One of the films playing in this year’s Un Certain Regard section is Emily Atef’s Plus que jamais (English title: More Than Ever), a film about death and our right to choose how to leave this world. One of life’s cruel ironies is that a film with such subject matter would be the last film of one of France’s best actors of the last decade, Gaspard Ulliel, who died in January after a skiing accident in the mountains of the Savoie in France.

At the festival Cédric Succivalli took part in a roundtable with Atef, and talked about working with Ulliel, about our difficulties in talking about death, and about the influence and importance of nature, and in particular the mountains, to her film.

Q: Your film deals with life ending, a subject we all grapple with in life and don’t really know how to handle. Should we teach classes about the things that we have no clue about in high school, or even younger?

A: Totally! That’s a good thing to put on my agenda now, for when I’m talking about the film. For Buddhists that is what all their teaching is about. Not that I’m a Buddhist, I don’t believe in any man-made religions, but I am a spiritual person. They spend their days meditating about life and living. It would be a bit tedious for me to do that the whole day, but just a little bit would be good. This is what fascinates me, I want to say in our Western society, but my dad is from Iran, and there it’s even worse. We don’t talk about death. When somebody dies in their family or circle of friends, they cannot even say the word. I live in Berlin in a flat overlooking a cemetery. I’ve always loved cemeteries, I find them beautiful, they are very safe, and there’s always parking (laughs). And it’s so green! Iranian friends told my father, “She has a beautiful flat, but she lives next to a cemetery”. The only thing we as humans know is that we will all die. We don’t know if we’ll find love, if we’ll be healthy, if we will have a child we like, if we are going to be happy, sad, or depressed, but we do know that we will die someday. And we never talk about it. Because we think others are going to die, not us, and it scares us so much to think about it. When you’re 33 like Hélène (ed: played by Vicky Krieps in the film) and you have fibrosis, it’s terrible. It’s definitely pain, and it’s not nice to lose the love of your life. What I find optimistic in the film though is her emancipation. It took him (ed: the character of Matthieu, played by Gaspard Ulliel) a long time, because of his selfishness through love. In the end Matthieu also becomes almost the hero of the film because he finally understands that he should allow her to choose the way she wants to leave. It’s our death, and we are allowed to choose it, even if it hurts the other. It’s about the emancipation to be able to say what one wants in these very existential moments.

Q: There is a striking element in this festival taking place on the seaside, and a lot of films here ironically turning their backs to the sea and looking at the mountains. You have The Eight Mountains in competition, you have The Mountain, Godland, and you have your film. All films have their roots in the mountains to find healing. In your film, particularly in the second half when the film comes together, I was shocked at your bold choices to show how healing that natural element is. How did you put that strong element of healing and nature and the mountains into your screenplay?

A: That was extremely important right away, already when I had the idea for the film in 2010: a girl has a mortal disease and travels to Norway to let go, like a wolf leaving the pack to find a place to die in dignity and peace. Nature is really important for me. In my early twenties I met this Norwegian guy who had just obtained his motorcycle license and bought an old motorcycle. He came from Trondheim, and I lived in Paris. He told me he was coming all the way down by bike. He asked me if I wanted to join, because I loved traveling. And I was very naïve, because I thought that was all we were going to do; but he had other ideas, which were not going to happen (laughs). So it was in a way a horrible experience, but it made me fall in love with this country. You’re on the back of this bike for eight hours a day where you don’t have to look at this guy’s face, so you see the country’s magnificent nature, and it’s so raw. It was in the summer, so there was no darkness at all. What my DP Yves Cape and myself were trying to show in the film is that nature doesn’t give up. In the scene where she’s almost on a suicide mission into the mountains, and he follows, we then have several shots of nature, from a fragile four-leaf clover to a river to the mountains. Nature just goes on; it doesn’t care about us, and that’s what makes us humble. That is what Hélène talks about to Matthieu on the phone: somehow I feel relaxed about it, I feel worse physically but I feel good within this nature.

Q: How much of a responsibility is it that your name will be synonymous with Gaspard Ulliel’s last film?

A: A year ago we were still shooting, and especially when we were in Norway, during COVID, it was such a tough shoot. But it was somehow magic shooting there. He was very serious in his work, but he would always lighten the mood during the shoot. Norway was very tough because a month before shooting everything was closed down. I was told that only the strict minimum number of people could come, and the Norwegian ministry was deciding who of my team could come. They told us only the director and actors could come, and I was, like, “What? I need a DP, I need a sound team.” We did hardcore quarantine. But it was a beautiful location, perhaps not indoors, but we were allowed to go outside. So we went hiking together, and swimming, and it was amazing. Those are my memories about our time working there together.

I was editing the film when I received the news that he had died, near the end of the editing process in fact. It was awful. My editor Sandie Bompar came to Berlin for three months, and we were working eight hours a day. We watched scenes with Vicky and Gaspard over and over again. We knew every eyelid movement, every breath. So when the news came it was a huge shock. And it still is every time I see the film.

Q: You went full circle, with Vicky playing here in Cannes also in Corsage.

A: I haven’t seen Corsage yet, but I must see it. Someone said that both women have a problem with breathing; in Corsage because of the corset, and in my film because of the disease. But they are also both films about female empowerment and taking back freedom.