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The Hollywood Reporter’s Alex Ritman sat down with director Jean-Philippe Duval to discuss his film '14 Days, 12 Days' in a 'THR Presents' Q&A powered by Vision Media.
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00:00Hi, I'm Alex Rittman, and thank you for joining us for The Hollywood Reporter Presents exclusive Q&A with Jean-Philippe Duval, the director of 14 Days, 12 Nights.
00:15Jean-Philippe, it's a real pleasure to speak to you, and I have to say congratulations on the film.
00:20It is, not only is it a beautiful story, you know, touching on, you know, forgiveness and loss and friendship and culture, but it's just so exquisitely shot.
00:32It's a beautiful, beautiful film to watch, and I think for a lot of us who have been stuck inside for the last however many months, it's perhaps difficult to watch, knowing that we're not going to be going out and seeing those sights for some time.
00:45Thank you so much. It's beautifully shot, you're right. It's a very personal movie for me. Maybe the most personal movie I've ever done, really.
00:56Well, that's interesting, because I was wondering what the genesis of the story was. Where did it first come from, and why is it so personal to you?
01:04The script writer, Marie Vien, who wrote the script, she herself adopted two girls, one from Vietnam and one from China 25 years ago.
01:19So it's not directly her story, because it's a fiction, but she, of course, was very inspired by her story.
01:29And on my part, my personal side of it is my sister adopted a girl from China 15 years ago.
01:39So when I first read the one pager of the project, I was immediately touched by it, and it was touching my own personal family story.
01:50My little niece is very important for me and in the family. So I was interested to go in that project.
02:01Absolutely. That's fascinating. Did you turn to your family for advice or tips along the way at how to approach?
02:09I mean, it's a very sensitive sort of story.
02:11It is. And it's still very sensitive, because my niece, Flavie, she was very overwhelmed and touched by the movie.
02:24She's 15 years old right now. And she, it's part of, for her, it's like if I was telling part of her story.
02:33Yes, along the way, I would say Marie Vien, a script writer, and me, we talk with a lot of parents who adopted the children.
02:44But I have to say that it's not a film about adoption directly.
02:49For me, it was a film about reconciliation, a film about peace.
02:56And I love the script, because it was not just, it was not a documentary, it was an inner journey, inside journey of the main character.
03:07A role movie, of course, as a young director, I was dreaming doing some kind of role movie one day.
03:14So for many reasons, the personal story, but also the cinematography of that is very personal.
03:22It seems, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like a slight departure from your previous films.
03:27Is it a, have you taken a different direction here, or?
03:32Yes, you're right. As a feature film, it's quite different.
03:36But I've done a TV show here in Canada, in French Canada.
03:40It was very popular here for seven years.
03:43And it was about women in jail.
03:46Okay.
03:46It's quite different from Quatorze jours, douze nuits.
03:50But it was about women realities.
03:53It was about, I guess, my sensitivity, my humanity too.
04:01So I'm here in Quebec as a French director.
04:05I'm very well known for my sensitivity.
04:08So when you know my work in TV, you can see the connection with Foreign Days, Twelve Nights.
04:17And you mentioned the research, you know, talking to parents who have adopted children.
04:22But when it came to the sensitivity of issues in Vietnam, which is obviously a very culturally different country,
04:30you know, what sort of research did you do while you were over there or in Canada when you were developing the film?
04:37It was, of course, very important to me to travel there, to meet Vietnamese people.
04:44As you maybe know, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, we have a large community of Vietnamese people who arrived in the 80s.
04:53So a lot of them were already speaking French when they arrived here in Quebec.
04:59So we have a large community here, but I haven't traveled to Vietnam yet.
05:07So I traveled to Vietnam more than six months in advance.
05:12It was very important for me to go there.
05:16I did a lot of documentaries in Canada for 15 years.
05:20I started that National Film Born, you know, in the 90s.
05:26And it was very part of my work to go there on the field.
05:32And as you probably know, it's a very small budget, independent film.
05:38So for me, it was important to, you know, it's not expensive to send a director and a DA on Vietnam for months.
05:49So it's what we've done, essentially.
05:51We travel.
05:53André-Lynne Beauparlant worked as a DA on the movie Incendie.
05:58Yeah.
05:58So it's part of my, you know, friends and gang of community.
06:05And I worked with André-Lynne for two months in Vietnam to meet Vietnamese, to find the landscapes.
06:14Because, as I said, it's a road movie, but the landscapes had to fit, you know, the main character travel.
06:24It was also a way to connect with Vietnamese people.
06:27It's very, a lot of people you see in the movie, I just cast on the road.
06:33I cast a lot of, you know, people just there.
06:37Because it's part of my work, you know, to integrate reality into that poetic film.
06:44Because I think it's also poetic and metaphoric.
06:48But we had a wonderful time there.
06:52Oh, fantastic.
06:53I mean, Vietnam is one of my favorite places on the planet.
06:55It must have been quite remarkable to shoot there.
06:59You know, just the, I love, particularly love the scenes in Hanoi.
07:03And, you know, the hustle and bustle and color in the background and people doing, you know, exercises in the morning.
07:11I mean, how much, you said that you're casting people on the, casting people on the street.
07:17But how much did you just kind of let the background just, did you need to do much planning or you get the camera out and there's already so much going on that, you know, it's.
07:26I think it's part of, you know, it's both, both approach.
07:32So, I had to plan a lot because we were a small crew from Quebec traveling there.
07:39We had just 19 days of shooting.
07:43It was very, very short, only four days in Quebec.
07:47So, it's a very, very small budget film.
07:51But, so we had to plan a lot with André-Lenbeau-Parlant, the DA, the Rie Belanger, the cinematographer,
07:57to, to be very, very, to be very precise in the, the kind of shot I was looking.
08:07But at the same time, I joined the documentary style approach.
08:12So, the casting agent over there were awesome because there's a lot of well-known actors, Vietnamese actors in the movie, stars from, for them.
08:25And I cross-mixed with people on the street.
08:30And I literally shot in Hanoi, like we do in documentary, put a camera there, put some extras in the, in the, the alley.
08:42But it was shot like this with no preparation, really.
08:49So, it was, for me, it was important to, to stay very close to the feeling of Isabel because she was traveling back to visit the country of her daughter.
09:01And she, she, the character didn't really know Vietnam except the, when she went to adopt 18 years ago.
09:09So, she, she, she, she was perfect for me to, you know, to adopt my, my point of view.
09:18And I'm not Vietnamese.
09:20I'm from Canada.
09:23So, I, I didn't want, you know, to, to be folkloric or to put something in Vietnam, not really, you know, genuine or something.
09:34So, I, I was totally comfortable to, to put my camera into the eyes of Isabel.
09:43So, the point of view of a mother who's going back over there to do her mourning, to heal her pain.
09:50And so, I discovered Vietnam with her, in a way.
09:57Fantastic.
09:57Fantastic, yeah.
09:58And, and some of the scenes where, you know, like the orphanage and places like that, how easy was it to find, you know, to work with, you know, local either film crews or just more like local sort of help there to, to, to find those, those particular locations?
10:17I would say Vietnamese were, at first, very, very open about the movie.
10:22We did, they read the script.
10:23We had, you know, a producer over there who, who helped us a lot, a fixer.
10:31He is a French guy who worked in Vietnam and is married with a Vietnamese woman from Hanoi.
10:38So, they, they, they, they helped us a lot.
10:42But it was, you know, like I do in documentaries, just to meet people.
10:49So, we, we visit a lot, three orphanage.
10:53And I, I felt in love with the, the one you saw in the, the movie.
10:58And I asked them not to change a thing about their life, about the, the building, about the, the, so the children you see are real orphans.
11:10And so, there's no, yeah, what you see is absolutely like in a documentary.
11:16And I put my actors in that, the piece, except the, the, you know, the nourish who, who work in the, in the orphanage.
11:26She's a relaxed actress, very well known.
11:29But, you know, what you see is really the place with the children.
11:34And so, we do some DA to, because the, the film is, the, the story is happening 10 years ago.
11:42So, we, we change costume or little things like that.
11:46But essentially what you see is we were in this, you know, we were stopping shooting when kids asked to go in recreation outside or something like that.
11:57So, it was, for me, very important to have this feeling in the movie, to, to be genuine, not to arrive and, you know, put everyone aside and just do what I had in my mind.
12:11It, it was not the way I, I, I shot this film.
12:15Nice.
12:15And, you know, I recognize quite a few parts of Hanoi around Wom Kim Lake and that area.
12:21And also, Halong Bay obviously is unmistakable, but where, sort of, where else did you go?
12:27I mean, I'd love to hear about how you planned, you know, what essentially sounds like a wonderful adventure of these remarkable landscapes.
12:36Yes, it, it was already planned in the script that the story, the story will be taking, you know, around the, the North Vietnam.
12:46This loop, a lot of people do when you come from, to Vietnam for, for the first time.
12:52So, from Hanoi to the mountains to Sapa and then Halong Bay, it's very classical traveling.
12:59But I was searching for, you know, the, just the outside of the beaten track, just the, the, the Vietnam you don't see all the time in your postal cards, you know.
13:14Yes, there's a lot of beautiful shots and, because Vietnam is wonderful.
13:20But for me, it was a character-driven movie.
13:24So, the, I'm talking about Isabel, but it was also Thuy, the, the main character, Vietnamese woman.
13:32So, it was the story about these two women, these two mothers of the same child.
13:39That was my focus.
13:42And the landscape and the shooting was all the time oriented for that.
13:48So, when, for example, Isabel meets Thuy in the little house in Sapa, you know,
13:54one day there's a fog coming into the, the mountains.
13:57So, it's all white through the windows.
14:00It was perfectly accidental.
14:03So, when I saw that, I say, oh my God, it's, it's beautiful.
14:09And my, you know, my DA said, yes, but we don't see outside.
14:15People may think we are in the studio.
14:18It's so blank.
14:19And, and I said, it's part of it.
14:22We are in the mountains.
14:23We are there.
14:24And I thought we decided to shoot this scene at this precise moment.
14:29And it was not on the schedule because it was a way to connect these two women together,
14:36you know, in front of nothing.
14:38But they were there to talk about their story and they didn't know each other who they were.
14:46So, it's an example of, you know, my, my focus was always character driven.
14:54That, I have to say, that house in Sapa was remarkable.
14:58And that, did you, I mean, when you went inside, I mean, it's filled with, you know, artworks.
15:04Did, did you fill that yourself?
15:06What was, what was there when you got there?
15:08You mean the artworks of the character of Thuy?
15:11Yeah.
15:12Oh my God.
15:13This is a wonderful story.
15:16Wonderful story.
15:17Because it was, for me, probably the, the most challenging thing in the script.
15:24Because Thuy, the Vietnamese woman, she, she, she, she's an artist.
15:29And she's doing paintings.
15:32So, it was already written.
15:34And, of course, we had to find an artist who will draw, who will paint these paintings.
15:43And we, we, we searched here in Canada for Vietnamese artists.
15:49And we didn't find, we, we searched in Vietnam.
15:51And it was very tough to find someone close to my sensitivity.
15:57Close to the, the poetic of this, the film.
16:03And it's the DA, André Léne Beauparlant, who finally found this painter.
16:10Very, very well-known in Vietnam, but very, at the same time, independent and very isolated.
16:19And a very, very talented guy.
16:23He read the script first.
16:26And he said, thank you for your script.
16:29Because you, you talk about consequences of the war.
16:34But in a beautiful way.
16:36And you're not so claric.
16:38And you're, you're very refined in the, the way you're telling the story.
16:44And I would like to do the paintings for your movie.
16:47So, he, he, he worked just, I, I met him.
16:54Once.
16:55And he said to me, give me two months.
16:58So, it's why we, we went to Vietnam six months before a shooting, you know.
17:02So, after two months, he called us back.
17:05And said, just come to my studio in Lanoi.
17:09And I arrived there.
17:11And big paintings were, he worked on, how do you say, rice paper?
17:18Yeah.
17:18Yeah.
17:19So, he did these big paintings you see in the movies.
17:24They are absolutely awesome.
17:26And it was all dropped on the floor of his studio.
17:30And I opened the door.
17:33And honestly, I saw all these paintings on the floor.
17:36And I literally cried.
17:38I was just, I didn't talk for 20 minutes.
17:42I don't know.
17:43And I was looking at him.
17:45He's a very secret man.
17:47He doesn't talk a lot.
17:48But he absolutely understood the, you know, the, the, what the character to me was living
17:57since these years, not seeing her daughters.
18:00So, the, his paintings are beautiful.
18:05And, of course, it's, I think, one of the, the, the beauty of the film also.
18:12Yeah.
18:12They're magnificent.
18:13And also, they're very different to the sort of classical Vietnamese paintings that you would
18:18see for sale on the street.
18:19They still have that touch to them.
18:20But they're not the, the ones that you would see in your, your souvenir shops or, you know,
18:26the usual.
18:28Yeah.
18:29So, when, when were you actually there?
18:32When, when, when did you go in advance?
18:34And when was the shoot?
18:35We finished the shoot in 2018, but 2019 also, because we had to do some shoots in Quebec.
18:47So, we finished the movie, would say, quite recently, because it was a, once again, we
18:56took a lot of time on post-production as we took to prep the film.
19:01The shooting was very concentrated because of this small budget.
19:04But we, we took our time to do the music, to do the, the editing also.
19:11I wanted to have this very special, hypnotic rhythm.
19:17It's slow, but fast at the same time, because it's a, a kind of a short film.
19:24It's 90 minutes, 95 minutes.
19:28So, we, we worked for months to refine and refine and refine.
19:34So, and I was waiting for a big, small storm here in Canada.
19:39So, when we had this opportunity, we went to shoot that.
19:44So, yeah.
19:45I, I do have to ask you about the shoot in Canada because the, the coastline house, it's
19:52just spectacular.
19:54It's such a, and it's obviously the, the contrast with, with Vietnam.
19:58But where did you find this property and can, can we buy it and move in soon, please?
20:04Because it's.
20:05It's very fun.
20:07Actually, I, you know, when you work on the movie like that, it's all about, it's all about
20:13your personal contacts or your personal thinking or emotion.
20:18And so, um, we have a place here in Montreal.
20:21I love restaurants, uh, owned by a friend of mine.
20:25And I said to him, I'm looking for this kind of house, you know, on the seashore, na, na,
20:31na, na, na, na, na.
20:32And he said to me, my wife just built that house.
20:38She's an architect.
20:39And she, she just did this house and he showed me the picture.
20:44And I remember I was, Oh my God, I visited more than 40 houses on the seashore.
20:52And it was not like that at all.
20:53And the, the house actually was not finished.
20:57So they, they finished the construction to, to help us in the movie.
21:02So I had this place on, unbelievable on the rock, you know, and we add this, probably the
21:08most, the biggest snow storm we had since the last three years in Canada, in Quebec.
21:13Like, it was unbelievable.
21:15And it was as, again, very close to the character, you know, feeling.
21:22So I was so happy, you know, nature for me in my life, I do a lot of Qigong and Tai Chi
21:29myself since 20, 15 years, I would say.
21:33Uh, I go to nature all the time.
21:36I did a lot of documentaries in the North of Canada.
21:39So this contrast between Vietnam landscapes and, you know, Canadian, Quebec landscape were
21:49very part of this because for me, it's expressing perfectly the, the, the moon of the character
21:55also.
21:55So did you join any of the, um, Tai Chi classes, the open air ones in, in Hanoi while you were
22:02there?
22:03Absolutely.
22:04Did you?
22:05Absolutely.
22:06But what you see in the movie, uh, is, uh, not directly the group I was doing Tai Chi with,
22:13but it was, yes, I was at the hotel morning and I was going to the lake to do my Tai Chi.
22:19Um, this country is unbelievable.
22:24Uh, I love Vietnamese.
22:25Uh, they were so welcoming and, uh, and we, we were privileged to be there as a film director.
22:34You know, when you have good contact, the doors open very easily.
22:39So after a few days only, I was already inside the houses in Hanoi and close to a lot of people
22:46and I was doing my, my Tai Chi with them and it was connecting.
22:52Yeah.
22:53Very easily.
22:55Oh, fantastic.
22:56Well, um, congratulations on a wonderful film and yeah.
23:00Thank you, Jean-Philippe.
23:00It's been a real pleasure to talk to you.
23:02And, um, thank you for joining us.
23:06The Hollywood Reporter presents screening series.
23:08It's wonderful.
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