Second short film. 35 mm, Black and White.
Adapting Moebius for the cinema is the dream of a lot of directors, but his imagination is too rich to be faithfully represented in a three-dimensional work.
In a 30-year career, he wrote only one comic strip that is truly adaptable for the screen that was inspired by a tragic event of 1974. Racists beat and killed an Arab in the middle of a building complex of a suburban housing estate without anyone doing anything about it. Moebius invented the “Nightmare of a White” out of it. A little gem of a few pages that is a perfect screenplay for a short film.
It was a screenplay I had wanted to do for a long time and which I’d started to work on before “Fierrot le Pou”. But the ambition of the project (a veritable super-production for me at the time) prevented me from achieving my ends and so I put off my pretensions for a later date.
Finally, “Fierrot le Pou” brought Christophe and I enough credibility to envisage making a second film, even if the CNC didn’t help us. I took my copy of “White Nightmare” out of a drawer and we launched into our first “professional big budget” short film…a truly big deal.
The first night of the shoot I wasted time trying to get a shot (the opening shot of the film) without realising that I was putting the rest of my script in peril. It was my first encounter with a professional 35mm format. The shoot was very difficult because it was really cold and windy which made it difficult to keep the lights on their stands. Five days of shooting with 35mm equipment, which is heavier, more professional…I made lots of mistakes that came in the form of slaps in the face that served me well later.
My thanks to Moebius for having signed my screenplay when I tracked him down at comic strip conventions to talk to him about my project. He gave me authorisation in five minutes while signing my original edition of “Cauchemar Blanc”. His accessibility and kindness gave me a lot of courage to continue to persevere. |
