Synopsis

Trapped in a chaotic city, drifting from his friends and hunted by his contradictions, Julian is yearning for sub-stance and clarity. A vision of a wild island, offering him an extraordinary void, slowly hijacks his daily life.

JULIAN is the first film written and directed by Maxime Fauconnier, produced by Les Films de la Récré.

About the author / director

Maxime Fauconnier has been working as a freelance image maker between New York and his hometown Brussels since 2010. His work focuses on youth and its codes, portraying excess as well as solitude, urban exploration and daily life details. He creates natural, vibrant and contemplative photographic series, regularly coupled with videos. Gradually evolving towards filmmaking, JULIAN is Fauconnier’s first fiction project. www.maximefauconnier.com

About the production company

Founded by french director Boris Baum, Les Films de la Récré is a production company based in Brussels that produces small budget arthouse films with big ideas. Les Films de la Récré works in partnership with other production companies and directors and also provides pre- and post-production services for foreign compa-nies.www.filmsdelarecre.com

Cast

Lucas Lauridsen - ‘Julian’Lucas (b. 1996, Denmark) plays his very first role in JULIAN. Maxime randomly met Lucas a few days after completing the first version of the script, in a Brussels park. An unexpected and natural collaboration followed and Maxime remodeled the story through their exchanges.

Django Luan - ‘Bram’Django (b. 1995, Belgium) is an actor best known for his roles in The Fifth Season (2012, official selection at the Venice Film Festival) and Dead Man Talking (2012).

Lula Cotton-Frapier - ‘Anna’Lula (b. 1999, France) got trained by Yorgos Karamalegos in England as well as Philippe Duclos and Olivier Rabourdin, both her acting partners in the TV series Inquisito. She entered the 36th promotion of the Classe Libre in Paris in 2015.

Crew

Director: Maxime Fauconniermaximefauconnier@gmail.com+32496052699

Assistant Director: Jules Folletjules.follet@orange.fr+33688733597

Director of Photography: Erwan Deanerwandean@gmail.com+33684039204

Sound: Enzo Tibitibi.enzo@gmail.com

Costume Designer: Natalie van der Meulen natalie_vdmeulen@hotmail.com+33684499325

Casting Director: Lo Everaertloeveraert@gmail.com +32494487975

Producer: Boris Baum boris@filmsdlr.com+33695400814

Executive Producer: Arnaud Chevallierarnaud.chevallier@insas.be+32484604736

Production Assistant: Lucie Liénard lucie.lfdlr@gmail.com+33616762428

Note by the author

Image

I have been working as a photographer for the past seven years, both in fine art and fashion. Gradually evolving film-making, I see JULIAN, my first fiction project, as a logical turn in my work as an image maker. Filming JULIAN allows me to tell a story, in line with my photographs, but enriched with many more layers: my personal style of framing and lightning now merges with sound and dialogue.

JULIAN depicts a day in the life of an 19 year old boy, trapped in a toxic city and longing for clarity and a sense of void, of silence. This internal longing is visually represented by an island offering massive landscapes with no man-made visual codes. Therefore, the story is told on two simultaneous layers: The city and the island, hijacking and answering each other. Each layer has its own light, sound, rhythm and movement. From the very start, I saw it as a confrontation between the colors red and blue.

I have always taken photographs using natural light. If I wish to capture someone in the dark corner of a street, I will shoot it without any flash. The light will faintly appear on the body, a grain will appear. The approach for JULIAN is absolutely similar: Altough a part of the film will be captured using the last bright hours of sun, most of the action is captured in the evening or at night, with absolutely no additional light. We are using the city of Scheveningen for what it is: an stimulating and ever-changing landscape, embracing the chaotic codes of its structures and light sources.

Visual references go from photographers like Saul Leiter and William Eggleston to painters like Giorgio de Chirico to filmmakers like Gus Van Sant, Jonathan Glazer or Larry Clark. An early obvious influence was the work of the cinematographer Christopher Doyle.

Additionally, a third of the film, located on the island mentioned earlier, will be shot in the early morning in the impres-sive coastal settings of the south of France, in the sand dunes, using night filters. This concept of « nuit américaine » creates a surreal palette of dark tones. The sun is now the moon. Examples of this technique can be found in my photographic series called « Blackout », captured between the United States and Spain under a bright, sometimes abrasive light.

The work of JULIAN’s director of photography, Erwan Dean, meets my approach on many levels. We both have a love for under-exposure and intense colors. Together we travelled and secured locations with avail-able light and worked around them.

My wish being to capture young teenagers swallowed by a big metropolis, the camera will follow their bodies in a space. They don’t occupy the space: they go through it and their actions and movements are defined by it. This way, a spontaneous approach emerges: We follow the characters cruising the streets and being hit by artificial lights as they walk by them. I welcome accidents. A boy hit by neon lights will become a dark silhouette then will reappear in another tone. The colors are vibrant, the black is a real black. The skins are not smooth, the clothes get dirty, the hair gets wet. The light and the elements flow just like the acting intentions of the actors.

To welcome this spontaneity, I made the choice early in the process to create photographic « tableaux »: The camera often stays still, and only the actors are moving through the frame. To visually represent the agressive personality of a big city, the characters sometimes find themselves looking like miniatures from a video games. When the scene or dialogue gets more intimate or focuses on texture, the camera comes closer. It’s a game of back and forth, mirrored by the two radical ambiances of the city and the island.

Sound

In JULIAN, I see the sounds as waves creating dense patterns. I wrote the film hearing the specific sounds of the imaginary city and island. Their sounds have an intense discussion and they keep taking the advantage over the other, over and over - wether it is sounds taken on set by the sound technician Enzo Tibi or created by the composer Olivier Van D’huynslager.

On set, the rather intense sonic elements of the city such as sirens, cars, helicopters, bells, seagulls or buzzing neons will be merged and create a dense sound, coming and going according to the location used, and occasion-ally eradicated when the island comes forward. For the island scenes, we shoot near the sea in a desolate setting. However, sounds of insects and forests will be recorded and coupled with the images.

Just as the rhythm, the sound will come and go, leaving room to silence and coming back in force, mixing the digital and the organic.

Sound references include films like Birth or Under the Skin by Jonathan Glazer, The Paperboy by Lee Daniels and Gerry by Gus Van Sant, as well as musicians like Apparat, Tobacco, M83 and Telefon Tel Aviv.

Moodboard

Storyboard Painting by Florence Laprat

Scheveningen, Hollande

Dune du PIlat, France

Bruxelles, Belgique

Filming locations