“Nobody trusted we could come back with a film shot in North Korea”
Interview with Francois Margolin, producer of Napalm (Claude Lanzmann, 2017)
Francois Margolin (born 1957) is an architect-mathematician turned film writer, two-times-César-Award-nominee director and award-decorated producer. His first short, Elle et Lui, won the prestigious Jean Vigo Prize. As a documentary film producer, he has worked with many famous directors from Raoul Ruiz (Nucingen House, Dias de Campo, La Noche de Enfrente) to Oscar-winning Denis Tanovic (Death in Sarajevo). His recent work, Napalm, directed by légende du cinema, Claude Lanzmann, was short-listed for the 2018 Oscars. He has answered our question about what it was like working with the recently passed French director on Napalm.
How was the idea of the film Napalm born?
The original idea came from Lanzmann’s book, The Patagonian Hare: a Memoir. I was thinking about how to make a film adaptation and when, in 2014, I was invited to sit on the jury of the Pongyang International Film Festival, I saw an opportunity. I had known Claude for a long time and I told him that it was possible to shoot in North Korea, due also to my good relations with the film industry there. We did not know if it was going to be fiction or documentary, nevertheless, he was immediately fond of the idea!
What was it like working together with Lanzmann? Could you share your best memory about him?
Honestly, working with him was a mixture of pleasure and the exact contrary. He had the reputation of a “difficult person,” which I found to be true and not true. He is one of the most intelligent men I have ever met during my life. As recounted in his memoir, he had an incredible life: he was involved with Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, and the making of Shoah; just to mention a few episodes. Being 90 years old, he was not afraid to come to North Korea. I cherish our eatings together, our debates, political discussions and even our occasional conflicts. My best memories of him is certainly our dinners in Paris, Cannes, and Pyongyang. I just love people who love to eat and enjoy drinking wine.
What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome producing Napalm?
Shooting in North Korea was hard. Everybody said it was impossible, and it was not easy but we just managed anyhow and “easy things” do not make good memories. It was also incredibly hard to find funding, nobody trusted me when I said we could come back with a film. But we did and Napalm is now the “testimony” of Claude Lanzmann as well as the closure of his work.
How do you see the films reception so far? Do you think it will ever be screened in North Korea?
We might have to wait long for a North Korean screening, but the reception elsewhere has been extremely good starting with the Cannes Film Festival last year. In France, the critics were very surprised that Lanzmann could talk about other things than the Shoah; as if it had been his only subject. Well, it was not his only subject. In Russia, for example, they just loved the film, too, maybe of its reminiscence of the “Soviet style.”
Do you see any difference between producing documentary film and fiction? What is your preference?
I like both genres and do not see much differences between them. Except, maybe, the pressure comes from the actors with fiction and from finances regarding documentaries. There seems to be less money for documentary, which is unfortunate!
What do you think about the role of documentary film in our times?
Very important! For me, ideas of fiction can only come from documentaries, from reality. Lanzmann was thinking the same.
What other documentaries have you worked on lately?
Currently, we are working on one with a young (25 years old) Colombian director, Tomas Pinzon. It is a documentary for movie theatres about the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) in Colombia during the peace process. A documentary “inside” a group of “guerrilleros.”
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