Santa Barbara

À LA VIE

SBIFF 2022

With Director: Aude Pépin

Interview by Emmanuel Itier

Aude Pépin may not have graduated from a film school nor directed anything before this first doc: ‘A La Vie’, but she proves she was born a talented artist with the perfect instinct when it comes to approach a very sensistive subject matter such as the birth of our children and what mothers go through afterwards. ‘A la Vie’ is an ode to life indeed, a poetic dramatic and life transformative film essay on what it means to be born and live in an unfair world where you have to constantly improvise to survive. Bravo, a brilliant young filmmaker is born, long live, long film, Mrs. Aude Pépin!

Q: Why did you choose this subject as your directorial debut?

Aude: In society there isn’t any thinking about the role of mothers when it comes to maternity, to give birth. I met Chantal Birman, a very well known mid-wife when I work for a French tv show, “La Maison des maternelles”. Her work and her thought system talked to me. Also, the way people look at mid wife tells you how they look at mothers, with disdain. Chantal Birman has always been a pro choice activist. She has a different approach about maternity that conventional hospitals have. Today mothers are not listened to, there are not respected as individuals. I wanted to show a different way of dealing with mother by listening to them, by respecting them. It was important for me to film a woman in her 70’s who has such an incredible and deep experience. I didn’t want that her wise experience to disappear with her when she would retire. I wanted to make this important subject matter accessible for everyone, whether you’re a woman or a man.

Q: What challenges did you face making this film?

Aude: The most difficult was to film a 70 years old woman, working in a tough Paris region, the “93” region, and working with mother with postpartum. At first I thought it wasn’t going to interest nobody. Especially because nothing had been covered in depth about Chantal works anywhere. This could not have been made for tv, as tv dictate a specific vision of things and is quite often too partial. I wanted to make this documentary for the theatres. I wanted to have the freedom to tell what I wanted to tell, with total honesty. Coming from the being an actress it wasn’t easy for me to convince people to trust me. Fortunately, I had been also a journalist and I pushed that angle with my past experience. Also, to be even more legitimate I surrounded myself of well known people such as Emmanuel Gras who is a well established filmmaker, Sarah Blum my director of photography, as well as Claire-Anne Largeron who was my sound lady.

Q: We imagine it was quite hard to convince some of these women to be part of such a sensitive movie?

Aude: Yes, this was quite a challenge. It was the first time we would see women in such intimist situation, both emotionally and physically. On top of this I wasn’t able to visit women who had just given birth in various hospital. So, I was helped by social services agents. At the end I only had like 10 minutes on the phone with each of them in order to convince them to be in the movie. And Chantal didn’t know them. But I trusted my instinct and I trusted Chantal. At the end we got enough of them to approve of us and we were able to film what we needed. What was actually the most difficult was to convince the fathers to let us film in their home. Most people live in tiny apartment so we had to film with a small crew in order not to be too intrusive.

Q: In what ways did making this movie transform you, as a woman, a mother, a wife?

Aude: I never went to film school, I quickly got a job working at Canal+ so I always felt a little bit like a “scam artist”. But making this film made me more secure about my work and showed me I had something to say. Also, working with all these women helped me, even more, find the woman within me. This movie forced me to go deep within myself, it was a passionate and an honest path to make the most intelligible and true movie. Chantal also helped me find my voice. She is used working with other in her line of work. This was great to have such a partner who totally trusted me with this film. This gave me lots of inner strength.

Q: What do you want people take from this movie?

Aude: I hope the conversation starts flowing about how we come to this world, in was conditions we are born and what immediately follows with our birth and with our mothers. We live in such fast times. People live in the instant. They don’t pause and think about anything, we have lost our common sense. We need to listen to each other, we need to care for each other. I really hope this movie will bring hope, the hope we can rethink our maternity system and how we treat each other in this world. I really hope my film will be seen by many so we can move forward in the right direction. We can do it!