At 77 years young and with nearly 20 feature-length films under her belt, French filmmaker Claire Denis is still going strong with no plans to retire. In a new interview with Screen Daily at a Qumra event in Doha, Qatar, Denis confirmed talk of a new film shot in Cameroon, a country she lived in as a child. Denis was raised in various countries in colonial French Africa, where her father was a civil servant, and has made at least two films about the experience with “Chocolat” and “White Material.”
Tentatively titled “The Fence,” the African-set movie will center on “four main characters, three men and a woman.” Three of them have been cast, though it’s unknown who they are at the moment.
“It takes place in Africa, on a construction site, directed and held by white Occidental [Western] people, and the workers are African,” she explained. “The script is finished; I have to do some corrections because I’m not sure about locations until today. One person is missing in the cast, so I might have to rewrite some parts.”
Denis spoke somewhat tentatively about the screenplay, suggesting it may not quite be where she wants it to be yet. Denis also suggested she could make something else in the interim instead, but the comments were vague.
“The script, I know it’s solidly built; there is something I could trust easily,” she continued. “But I realized since December, I have described them, I know the way they look, I could even describe their clothes. But there is something missing; I don’t know them enough; I realize they are still characters.”
Clearly, she’s still tinkering with the screenplay. As for rumors of her retirement after her back-to-back 2022 films, “Both Sides Of The Blade” and “Stars At Noon,” forget it.
“I never said I was going to stop making films!” Denis insisted. “’Stars At Noon’ made me so happy. I wish I [could] work once more with Margaret [Qualley, who led the film with Joe Alwyn]. Maybe I’m too old; that’s what they meant.”
“Retiring in filmmaking,” she continued. “It’s strange because it’s a lot of work, but it’s not a job. So, retire from what? I don’t know. Each film is one solid thing that has a beginning and an end. I think the best way to retire is to die.”
Watch the complete Qumra Master Class talk below.
