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00:03We are all influenced by love songs performed and written by men, but men rarely talk about their feelings, right?
00:13So I take their words and question them.
00:44This is not what it seems, Lucy.
00:46You will have to trust me for now.
00:53You're so deep in our lives, and I know nothing about you.
00:59What are the secrets you have?
01:07I just feel that...
01:11Something is not going to happen.
01:16Lucy, you cannot run away all the time, please.
01:20Do you want me to cry?
01:22I don't care.
01:23It's just that I'm happy.
01:26I love you so much it hurts.
01:28How can you trust anybody?
01:29Yes.
01:41You must talk to someone.
01:48I'll talk to the piano.
01:50I'm sure you can answer.
02:02I'm sure you can answer.
02:05I'm sure you can answer.
02:19I'm sure you've seen it.
02:20Unfortunately, it was marred a little bit after it was premiered, because one of your actors had discovered that he'd
02:29had a bunch of images on his computer, very disturbing images, and has since pled guilty and was arrested and
02:37pled guilty.
02:37I'm curious, how did that inform this film, or you making it, and how much of it is, if at
02:47all, you kind of trying to sift through that?
02:52I mean, as a writer-director, I always have different projects in different stages, and I started working on Gentle
02:59Monster in late 2020 after reading an article in a German newspaper about a big ring of pedocriminals being uncovered
03:07in Germany.
03:09And that article just made it clearer to me than it had ever been that I certainly must also know
03:17perpetrators myself.
03:19So when all that happened with the actor, I knew a lot about how the investigators were.
03:27I knew so much about the issue, and it was a very disturbing coincidence, obviously.
03:34And then I thought, now I can't make that film anymore, because it will always be connected to that actor
03:41and to that case.
03:42But some time later, I realized it's maybe even more of a reason to make the film and to confront
03:47it and not shy away from it.
03:49Yeah.
03:50Leah, tell me, what drew you to this project, and what compelled you to pick Lucy?
03:57What was it that you wanted to explore in this character?
04:01I just love the script. I thought it was really well written and very subtle, because the subject is obviously
04:12a tough subject, and it's not that easy to make a film about a subject like this one.
04:19And I love the fact that it was through the woman's perspective, and that it's through her eyes that the
04:26story unfolds.
04:30And yes, it's through the victim's perspective, or through the perpetrator's perspective.
04:37So that, I thought, was extremely interesting, because I was able to express very contradictory feelings and a large range
04:52of the different emotions.
04:56And yes, I, that's the reason.
04:59Yeah.
05:00She, Lucy goes through, you see her kind of go through these different stages of grief almost, you know, and
05:05there's a big part of it, I'm not spoiling anything, but she's in denial.
05:09And she's kind of trying to reconcile being married to someone that she probably doesn't know at all.
05:17How, tell me about the challenges that kind of came with playing that, and kind of, and also you hold
05:22so much of it in your face as well, and like the expressions she uses.
05:26Tell me a little bit about that process and conveying these sort of stages of grief that way.
05:38I mean, I, when I read the script, it's really hard for me to say exactly how I, you know,
05:44how I did it, because it's very instinctive.
05:48What I, what I felt when I read the script is that I had this feeling that I knew Lucy,
05:56in a way, even though I didn't go through, you know, to say, I mean, I, I, I didn't experience
06:02what she's experiencing in the film, but I, it was extremely moving for me.
06:09And, and, and I was just, when I was acting, I was just, I want, I wanted, I wanted it,
06:20I wanted it to be like very truthful.
06:23And, and, and I am a bit obsessed about like finding the right tone.
06:29And, um, I didn't try to make it, uh, like, look like a performance.
06:35You know, I don't like that.
06:36I wanted, I wanted Lucy to be very grounded.
06:40And, um, I, it's really something that I like about the film.
06:46It's, uh, even, you know, the, the couple.
06:49Uh, I, I, I like that it's really, um, we are in their intimacy and, and it, and it feels
06:58very, yes, very, um, very truthful.
07:04And as Marie often said, you know, they feel very close to us.
07:10You know, it's just, and, and this thing suddenly happened, this horrible thing.
07:18And then how, you know, the, the, the earthquake that it, that it, you know, creates inside of her, the
07:30fact that she's unable to really tell the secret.
07:34Because it's something that's just so difficult to, to express.
07:43There was just so many things that I, that I loved.
07:47And, um, also the fact that she's a, a foreigner.
07:51That she doesn't really speak the language.
07:54That's like another, um, another, like.
08:00Barrier.
08:01Yeah, barrier, yeah.
08:01Yeah, yeah, yeah.
08:02And she's, she's very isolated with this, um, with this.
08:08But I, I, I, yes, I, I just, um, I mean, for me, I wouldn't say it was easy.
08:17It was not easy, but it was just very, I felt her very deeply.
08:23Mm-hmm.
08:24And I have to say that there was like other things that, that were more difficult for me.
08:29For example, the piano, which is more technical.
08:33And, uh, the German, the German was tough.
08:35Um, maybe, I want to come back to that in a second, actually.
08:39But, Marie, could you tell us, there's, there's a lot, you create a lot of ambiguity.
08:45There's a lot of, um, things that aren't said or presented to the audience or the viewer, very obviously.
08:53It's very gentle as in the title, but tell me why, because it's something, it's a subject matter that, as
09:01a woman, and I think anyone, it invokes such rage inside of anyone, kind of harming children.
09:06Tell me, or, or, or, you know, having images, et cetera.
09:10But how, why did you choose to take this route and kind of leave things open for your audience?
09:19Because there are some things that are left unanswered in this film.
09:22So I'm curious why that was a decision you decided to make.
09:26Um, I think we are used to, um, fiction, um, giving us closure, you know, to, to, to, to.
09:36Um, seeing or listening to or reading a story and, and have like a proper ending in a, in a
09:43best case, a happy one.
09:45Um, but one thing is I wasn't sure how did this story could have an, any kind of happy ending.
09:51That was one thing.
09:53Um, two is I personally prefer and love open endings also as a viewer, um, because it lets the film
10:01stay with me for longer.
10:02It lets me think about it more.
10:03It gives me more space to have my own thoughts and interpretations of, of moments in the film and of
10:09scenes.
10:10And maybe the most important thing was that in real life, very often there's no closure.
10:16We, we, even if we, hopefully all of you have never gone through what Lucy's going through,
10:21but we've all been hurt in our lives.
10:23We've all been disappointed in our lives.
10:25Um, there's people in our lives we don't speak to anymore.
10:28And when we move away from them, very often we will never know their side of the story.
10:34Plus we don't walk away from them and never think of them again.
10:37The, the emotion is just, someone recently said to me, the emotion is like energy and the energy has to
10:42go somewhere.
10:43So you, you, you have a trauma or a pain and you, you, your thoughts return to that person.
10:50And, and there's always open endings.
10:52I think that's very much what life is.
10:54And what I was trying to capture here that Lucy will have to live with something without ever fully being
11:00able to understand what happened.
11:02Um, and that's, yeah, felt just the most organic way to, to tell and end the story for me.
11:10In terms of sort of challenges during shooting this, I'm curious beyond the kind of the subject matter,
11:19what were some of the most difficult moments or scenes for you to film or prepare for and why?
11:25I would put that to each of you.
11:26You want to start, Leah?
11:29Yes.
11:29Uh, so as I said, you know, I think the, um, the, the concert scenes were difficult and the German,
11:39because, um, it was difficult for me to play the emotions with the language I don't speak, but interesting.
11:49How long, what was the kind of preparation process for that, for the German and for, do you play piano?
11:54Yeah, I mean, we, we, we, we rehearsed, we rehearsed, uh, in Vienna with a piano teacher.
12:01Okay.
12:02And, um, and the German, I, I, I have a friend who, who helped me for the German.
12:09She, because I, I, I, when I read the script, it was in English and I forgot about the German.
12:16So, so, Marie just, um, we started filming and we all, we, we were already filming.
12:22And she said, but do you know, it's fine with your scenes in German?
12:26You know them?
12:27And I was like, oh, I think I forgot.
12:30But, um, just to, for anyone who hasn't seen it, the film is in English, French, and German.
12:36Oh, you haven't seen the film?
12:37Just to make that, no, I think some people have, but some people haven't.
12:40And, um, just to make it nice and easy, it's three languages.
12:44For you there.
12:45Um, sorry, go ahead.
12:46Yeah.
12:47So, so yes, so, um, so the German, I had to learn German.
12:52But it was, again, interesting.
12:56What about you, Marie?
12:58I would also say the big concert scene was a really hard day for, for both Leia and
13:02me because it, um, she's a very intuitive actress, which I love.
13:07And I'm a very intuitive director and not very technical in terms of, I mean, I know what
13:12I need to know, but I, I don't want any marks for the actors.
13:16I want them to move freely.
13:17So I'm not like planning shots in millimeters.
13:21That's not how I do it.
13:22And so when you, but when you're shooting a scene like that, you have to do that.
13:25You know, we had a double for specific shots.
13:28We had to, it was a lot of back and forth with the sound.
13:31And so it was a day where I felt like this is out of my hands now.
13:35I can't really do anything.
13:36Everyone's really stressed and I can't really help here.
13:39Um, and, and the one other scene was the, um, you know, when she leaves at the property
13:45of the, uh, of her husband's parents and she drives out backwards and Leia doesn't drive.
13:51It's true.
13:51That was one thing.
13:53And, and then she said, Oh, I can practice.
13:55And then I said, even if Leia practices, they will not let her drive backwards fast with
14:00a child in the car.
14:01So, and, and they all, everyone told me that that road is too narrow for a trailer.
14:07We can't do, we just can't do it.
14:09And I was like, you are not here to tell me we can do it.
14:13It's in the script.
14:14So you have, I don't have to come up with an idea how to do it.
14:17You have to tell me how we can do it.
14:18But it was really, it was a wild day really for everyone.
14:23I mean, a child, I think he, he loved it.
14:25He thought it was really funny.
14:29I'm, I'm so sorry.
14:31We are out of time.
14:32I could ask many more questions about this film.
14:34I urge everyone to see this.
14:36It's a really powerful and important film.
14:39Thank you, Marie.
14:40Thank you, Leia, for being here today.
14:41Thank you for having us.