Paloma Sermon-Daï
Petit Samedi, Paloma Sermon-Daï (2020)
Paloma Sermon-Daï is a Belgian screenwriter and film director. Her first film, Petit Samedi, premiered at Berlin, Edinburgh, IDFA, Bilbao, True/False, Docaviv, and Athens, where it won Best Documentary.
In an exclusive interview with Filmatique, Paloma Sermon-Daï discusses shooting a very delicate subject–her brother’s drug addiction—with her actual brother and mother, as well as the advantages of shooting in her hometown. Petit Samedi is presented as part of Filmatique Talents 2021.
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FILMATIQUE: Petit Samedi is an emotionally nuanced and ultimately very humanizing portrait of addiction and the unique bond between a mother and son. When did you first have the idea to make this, your first feature film?
PALOMA SERMON-DAI: I got my cinematography degree in 2017. I have always wanted to make a film in and about my hometown. I started writing Petit Samedi six months after finishing school. I showed the first pages to my producer, who at the time was just a previous teacher, and he gave me his opinion on my first draft. Soon after that meeting, we decided to work together.
In the beginning, Petit Samedi was supposed to be a more choral movie with many characters framing my brother's story. I filmed Damien regularly to get him used to the camera, and made adjustments to the images and the treatment of the story as the filming went on. From time to time, I showed the images to my producers, and we gradually realized that Damien's story was a film on its own, and therefore, I decided to focus on that.
In the beginning, my mother was not supposed to have such a relevant role, but during a test with the film crew, we realized that Damien was much more helpful and at ease when our mother was around, and that is why I started to rewrite the movie with that special “mother-son" duo. I am incredibly proud of the result which it brought. In my opinion, Petit Samedi is a more intimate portrayal on drug addiction, and shows it with a different point of view.
FLMTQ: What particular challenges, and advantages, do you believe you faced in tackling such a personal topic? Were there any family dynamics you had to navigate that perhaps you wouldn't have during a traditional shoot?
PSD: It was quite hard but I was able to rely our bond. Of course, during a more traditional shoot, I would have had the possibility to close the door and leave everything behind in the evening! As you can imagine, that was impossible. I had to be careful not to break the unique relation that has always united the three of us. I would say that the main challenge was to make a film without hurting any of us, and at the same time making it with no regrets. I wanted to document the reality whilst offering something artistically interesting.
Petit Samedi, Paloma Sermon-Daï (2020)
FLMTQ: The spirit of the small Walloon town also features prominently in the film, lending Petit Samedi its own cultural specificities alongside its broader, more universal message. How did you conceptualize this particular geography within the parameters of your documentary technique?
PSD: The village is a character in itself. The film is almost a closed session with this duo of characters. They are surrounded by a friendly—and at the same time—hostile village. This is what I wanted to represent, and Damien summarizes that quite clearly during one of the therapy session: the fear of judgment and the feeling of being constantly observed. Drug addiction in rural areas is an uncommon subject in Belgium. We are used to imagining drug addicts in big cities and not in a village.
In terms of the method, making a film in a place that I know perfectly had its advantages. I knew exactly the places that interested me, and the time at which the light corresponded best to the scene that we wanted to picture. I enjoyed working in that environment.
FLMTQ: Frédéric Noirhomme's cinematography is also quite striking: he brings the fixed, geometric compositions of Ulrich Seidl's movies, then gradually approximating the human characters as intimacy develops. Can you discuss your creative collaboration with Noirhomme? What references, if any, did you draw upon as inspiration while developing the film's aesthetics?
PSD: I loved working with Noirhomme precisely because we understood each other and knew what we wanted to portray quite rapidly. I was inspired by the work of Akerman and Bruno Dumont because I like the way they film Belgium and Northern France. With Frédéric Noirhomme we mainly sought to find the right distance; the right angle to picture the subject and the characters. The challenge was to make a solar movie without unhealthy intrusion into this very delicate subject.
The characters came together very naturally. They opened up more and more, and the topics of their discussions made us want to get closer–and that's what we did.
Petit Samedi, Paloma Sermon-Daï (2020)