I opened Twitter on a beautiful Friday evening because I’ve long struggled to treat myself well and ultimately don’t believe I deserve happiness. But after 14 years it’s paid off: much chatter led me to The Guardian‘s recent piece on Claire Denis, a fascinating (and accurate) window into the experience of interviewing a not-always-patient genius. More than a good read it’s a brief look ahead, with notice Denis has just––as in: last week––finished writing a new feature for which she’ll begin scouting this month in Cameroon.
Cameroon, of course, bearing profound significance: experiences growing up in the country were basis for Denis’ debut feature Chocolat, as autobiographical as the corpus gets, and more than two decades hence she’d return to film the majority of White Material, about which she’s long spoken in extremely intimate terms. (As she told me in 2018, “Isabelle Huppert in White Material is very close to me.”) Zero further word on what the film is, and being that scoop sites won’t exactly hit every contact to know what Denis does next––expect same for the next little while. But further movement from a filmmaker who only last year showed further sign of sustained (or at least notable-enough) brilliance deserves such mention.
If you know anything, the line at nick@thefilmstage.com is perpetually open.