French director Julia Ducournau, who burst onto the world filmmaking scene in 2016 with “Raw,” admits it wasn’t easy to come up with her latest film, “Titane.”
“I think that it is the hardest script I’ve ever had to write, although I’m very young in my career,” she tells Variety’s Awards Circuit Podcast. “But I think that I never struggled as much as I did for this one for many reasons. I was very scared of the expectations that people had for my second film, knowing that “Raw” had found its success.”
On the podcast, Ducournau discusses her journey to creating the new project and her struggle to connect with the main character. Listen below!
“When it’s your first feature, no one expects anything, because no one even knows you exist,” she says. “So this is something that I struggled with very much I also struggled with my own expectations. As far as my second film was concerned, I felt that I had given everything I had to ‘Raw’ and I was afraid that I didn’t have anything else to give to another film, and especially love. And so that was something that took a long time to find in me.”
“Titane” won the Palme d’Or in Cannes this year, making Ducournau just the second woman to win the prestigious prize, after Jane Campion.
“I don’t think it’s something that’s I have fully processed yet,” she says. “And I don’t think that I want to process it actually. Maybe in retrospect, in many years, but right now, I do not want to yield under the weight of this too much. Because I want to keep on working. I was obviously honored is really an understatement.”
Ducournau also talks about whether she would write a script in English (“I think that English is a way more action-driven language. So for me, it would be very interesting. I’m already very much action driven.”) and much more in the episode.
But first, the Awards Circuit roundtable discusses “West Side Story,” “Don’t Look Up” and the upcoming Critics Choice and Golden Globe nominations.
Variety’s Awards Circuit podcast is hosted by Clayton Davis, Michael Schneider, Jazz Tangcay and Jenelle Riley and is your one-stop listen for lively conversations about the best in movies. Michael Schneider is the producer and Drew Griffith edits. Each week, “Awards Circuit” features interviews with top talent and creatives; discussions and debates about awards races and industry headlines; and much, much more. Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or anywhere you download podcasts. New episodes post every week.
