Bonne journée, Have a Nice Day

Bonne journée is a film whose making resembles a workshop film, the kind of project that artists or filmmakers develop when invited to run workshops by institutions. These are generally short-term and involve a range of participants. I’ve always enjoyed these invitations and, over time, they’ve become part of my regular practice. I now propose video workshops myself, which allows me to do them independently and free from usual time constraints. Bonne journée came about after four years of workshops with the Emmaüs community in Grenoble.

There was no script as such—the film developed through the workshop. What interests me is what actually happens, which is always very different from what I might have imagined would happen. It’s a different working method—the very long shooting period allows for thinking through doing, responding to what arises. The project also began in a surprising way: I met a companion at Emmaüs who told me we could make a film about his life. He told me his story and I agreed to do it. But when I arrived at Emmaüs to start filming, he had left. The director suggested I make an announcement at lunchtime in the dining hall, to see whether any other companions were interested in making a film. A few were, so I started a workshop. From there, we advanced step by step, guided by the work and the objects we found—these discoveries opened up different directions. Valuing the objects was also a way of making the film contribute to Emmaüs’s activity. I was able to run the workshop independently, but the film had to adapt to the very full, very intense pace and space of the work. So the film inserted itself into the work, while also subtly diverting it.

The participants were simply those who wanted to take part. I always work like that, with the people who respond to the proposal. If someone wants to join in, I’m delighted, and we figure out together what they can do. I was present during working hours over those years, and when I was there, people could choose whether to join the shoot or carry on with their usual work.

We began by photographing objects with the idea of making a catalogue and display images for the shop. For clothing and furniture, we thought it would work better with people—with models. The photos became portraits. We did the shoots together, and everyone made suggestions. Printing the photos also helped us see what was possible. Each person got involved according to their interest and taste—in staging, sound, performance, modelling… As the project had no fixed timeline or written script, it remained open enough for everyone to find their place. Another key moment for engagement came in 2022: we had made a first film, which was selected for the C’est pas du luxe! festival. All the companions from the community came to see it, and when the film team was called onstage, I thought I would have to speak alone—but no, all sixty of them came up to speak about their film. I thought I’d been annoying them with my tripod, but not at all—they were proud of it. I was so happy that when we got back, I suggested we continue, and three years later we made Bonne journée.

The Emmaüs shop contains everything—each object leads somewhere, there are incredible finds and juxtapositions that upend established orders. Being surrounded by the remnants of society gives you a certain distance from its values. You can embody all kinds of things—it’s fun, of course. In the Emmaüs shop, which is a kind of parallel economy of objects, the workshop became a way of stepping aside from daily work—we started to look at the shop as a theatre, or as backstage. A giant costume store where we could play with merchandising and its desire-producing techniques, which, when replayed, take on a quiet humour and a touch of poetry.

Many shots are images setting themselves into place—we wanted to make photos in the style of catalogues or teleshopping. So the fixed frame is both the photo’s frame and the film’s. Also, I often shoot alone, so I love static shots—it lets me focus on several things at once during filming.

The lack of dialogue was initially due to mutual shyness—both from the Emmaüs community and from me. In 2022, I edited a film from a project I’d begun in 2016 (Construire les liens familiaux), and I ended up keeping only the silences. It allowed other things to emerge, and that’s become part of how I work. Six people contributed to the sound—not all together, but over the four years of filming, different people helped.

Yes, this mirroring, this play of gazes and mise en abyme is present throughout the film. The view widens—the photos are taken among companions, then there’s the exhibition for customers, and finally, the film itself opens it up further, with the audience now included in the process. The spectator feels observed too, because they recognise what’s being talked about—these objects are theirs, the advert-like images are familiar. The different parts of the project co-exist—the workshop, the photos, the catalogue, and the film, which is just one production among the others.

It was important to show these photos, this catalogue, these videos, this film, and to develop a shared practice of image-making. Taking formats we associate with advertising and commerce, and using them to make things to be simply looked at—images, portraits. Capitalism turns everything into a commodity. The workshop time was different—it diverted objects and labour towards other ends.