You are a photographer, but for several years now you have also been working with moving images; your filmography includes other correspondences such as Lettres à Huguette and Lettres à Francine. I find it very interesting that in Lettres à Etel, it is loss that sparks the desire to continue a dialogue, a connection with someone who is no longer there. How did this film come about and how did you make it?
As is my habit, I don’t plan anything. The film came about as a necessity. One day, back in April 2023, some time after my friend Etel had passed away, I felt the need to write to her. I live in the countryside, in the mountains of Lebanon. The house has a splendid balcony overlooking a magnificent valley. I sat down at the balcony and that’s where I started writing to her. It became a correspondence as I could almost hear Etel answering me. I had, of course, no idea where this work would lead me. I was moving forward but I had no idea whether I was going to turn it into a film, or whether I was going to make it into a book…And then, six months later, came what Hamas did in Israel, followed by the war against the people of Gaza. I couldn’t help but write about that to Etel, especially as it was a way for me to contain my rage. All the more so because I’d just discovered, to my great surprise, a book by Etel in the library of the house where i live - it’s a family home where books are for everyone, for children and adults alike - one of the first she ever wrote, the L’apocalypse arabe, dedicated to my mother.
I saw it as a sign. Maybe it was around that time, towards the end of the year or at the start of the following one, thanks to a friend who is also my neighbor in the village, Wajdi, who enjoys getting behind the camera, that the idea for a film really took shape. Above all, he helped me film the book as it’s not easy to film a book, especially when it becomes a main character. With Wajdi, we developed filming techniques so that the shots of the book wouldn’t be repetitive.
Indeed, I find the connection between your writing and Etel’s writing very interesting. It is your voice that brings your writing to life, whilst the image carries Etel’s words from the book L’Apocalypse arabe. How did you go about creating this interplay, during the editing process, between the sound of your voice and the image of Etel’s words?
I hadn’t realised that, it’s thanks to what you have just said that I now realise the image is Etel’s voice and the sound is my voice. In any case, I hadn’t thought of it in those terms. The editing process started with the help of a friend, Isabelle Prim. She was the one who started putting the shots together and asking me, at the same time, to send her more images, not from the book, but from the rather idyllic place I live. She thought that this place had a direct link to the genesis of the film. I wouldn’t have thought of it without her. She then worked on the editing for about a year before stopping for personal reasons. And that’s when Wajdi and I took up Isabelle’s idea and saw it through to the end.
Your own images shot in Gaza during a trip in the 90’s also appear in the film. These images shot over 30 years ago are telling of a situation of violence and oppression that persists in the present and made worse by the will to destroy. Could you explain this choice ?
The photographic part didn’t raise many questions, especially as I’ve always tried to take pictures that will still have meaning ten or twenty years down the line. Revisiting the photos I’d taken thirty years ago in Gaza made sense. Two other films in the trilogy, Lettres à Francine and Lettres à Hugette, also feature photographs. The first one was made in 2004 and everybody told me at the time: “you’re crazy, you can’t make a film with photographs”. I did and it’s become the formula I use.
That being said, once the editing of Lettre à Etel was coming to an end, there were some photographs we withheld because they didn’t fit with the rhythm. Others, on the contrary, were added. Throughout the editing process, I would sometimes focus solely on the photos to view them in sequence and to gauge how long they needed to appear on the screen. At other times, I focused solely on the images of the book. I think the hardest part was coming up with different ways to film the book, emphasizing some sentences, such as the ending: “In the night, in the night we shall find knowledge, love and peace.”
It took me over a year to discover that sentence, a year before putting it at the end of the film, a year to realise “but I also need to say that it is the last page of the book”. All these things that may seem obvious today because they are so, took time to be noticed, to be understood.
At what point did you feel that the correspondence had been successfully established? Because it’s a correspondence that could have lasted longer.
That too was like cooking a meal, it was about getting the measurements right. I had written many more letters to Etel. Isabelle had initially selected a number of letters, then Wajdi and I went through them again, removing some and adding others. It was just like with the photos, a constant adjustment. At one point, I thought it was done, that the rhythm was finally just right. It was about 42-43 minutes long, as for the other two films of the trilogy. So I thought to myself that it must be the right format.
Interviewed by Margot Mecca
