\n\tThe IFFR website promises \u201ca finely woven, reflective essay on past longings and present selves infused with the subtle glamor of French cinema.\u201d And it adds: \u201cLa belle ann\u00e9e\u00a0becomes a meditation on far more than one person\u2019s past, present and imagined future. Its emotional terrain is one in which many viewers may recognise themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tStockholm, Sweden-based Ruffier, who previously directed short films From Here to There and the Other Way Around (2018) and Stranger (2020), wrote and directed the film, for which Odd Slice Films is handling sales, except for Sweden, where Folkets Bio will release it theatrically on April 17. <\/p>\n
\n\tProduced by Marta Dauliute and Brynhildur \u00de\u00f3rarinsd\u00f3ttir, La belle ann\u00e9e features cinematography courtesy of Simon Averin Markstr\u00f6m, while Anna Eborn handled editing.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn a Zoom interview, Ruffier talked to THR about her cinematic and personal journey with La belle ann\u00e9e, balancing scripted and improvised scenes, meeting her former teacher crush for the film, and why her editor played a particularly big role in shaping the movie.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe filmmaker started her five-year-long work on the movie during her time in film school. Showing her personal side may be a big challenge for many of us, but Ruffier didn\u2019t struggle with it too much. \u201cStrangely enough, it was not that difficult in a way, because with film, you still have some sort of control of what is said and shown,\u201d she tells THR. \u201cBut this filmic space allowed me to step out and find a form of storytelling. We definitely had difficult moments, but having a filmmaking team is also kind of a family. It\u2019s another kind of family that you have beside you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tLa belle ann\u00e9e is a mix of scenes scripted by Ruffier, illustrated with images captured for the film or classic film clips, as well as scenes showing her talking to her family, her former teacher and others. \u201cAll the scenes where I\u2019m interacting with another person are not scripted,\u201d she says. \u201cI entered those scenes with a desire or goal and then just let things happen. The scripted, much more constructed scenes are cinematically inspired by the Dardenne brothers, how the camera follows you, and how you can create cinematic intensity.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
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\t\t\t\t\t\u2018La belle ann\u00e9e\u2019 <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of IFFR<\/p>\n
\n\tRuffier\u2019s idea to use classic film clips came very early in the creative process. \u201cThat was actually one of the first things I had in mind \u2013 [French director] Claude Lelouch and [Belgian director Harry K\u00fcmel\u2019s 1971 erotic horror film] Daughters of Darkness],\u201d she tells THR. \u201cI wanted to show how love, how a fascination for someone carries in itself a lot of other words, literature and cinema, and how you are infused by this when you feel things.\u201d The feeling in her case was simple, yet challenging. \u201cIt\u2019s a kind of forbidden love, something transgressing, by a teenager,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n
\n\tGiven that La belle ann\u00e9e isn\u2019t easily put into a genre drawer, how would the filmmaker herself describe her film? \u201cIt\u2019s about a young woman who loses her father and is exposed to feelings that she can\u2019t recognize, and she then identifies with her 16-year-old self who wrote diaries about feelings that she couldn\u2019t embody,\u201d Ruffier replies. \u201cWhen you ask about big themes, it\u2019s about memory, not feeling alone, having families [or influences] other than the one you have naturally. But it\u2019s also about what to do about past loves. Should you do something?\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThere is a certain nostalgia to La belle ann\u00e9e, and the filmmaker knows another reason for that, beyond the themes of longing and memory. \u201cThe film goes back to a time before the internet. You know, we wrote letters to each other back then,\u201d says Ruffier. \u201cSo, yes, there is a romantic view.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tFor Ruffier, the hardest part was filming scenes that show her unearthing and reading her old school-time diaries, full of entries about her then-teacher. \u201cTo be able to read them, and not censor them out of shame, was most difficult,\u201d she shares.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhat was it like to meet her old teacher again after many, many years, especially given that the filmmaker used to have a teenage crush on her? Ruffier was impressed by Bresson\u2019s composure and willingness to engage. \u201cI am very amazed by her cinematic coolness,\u201d she tells THR. \u201cI come there with difficult questions and a great deal of desire to talk and eat, and she accepts that and the camera. So that was brilliant of her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe editing was \u201cvery important\u201d for the movie, Ruffier highlights, lauding Eborn, a colleague from film school, as a particularly important collaborator given that she could bring more of an outsider\u2019s view. \u201cWhen you make a movie where you yourself are the hero, you need someone that you can have a big dialogue with about what the film actually needs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\u2018La belle ann\u00e9e\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of IFFR<\/p>\n
\n\tWhile Ruffier has built her filmmaking skills, she shares with THR that reading her old diary entries for La belle ann\u00e9e made her think about her skill in expressing emotions. \u201cI want to be like you. No, I want to be you,\u201d she reads an old entry about her teacher in the film, for example. <\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s what I actually wrote in this diary when I was 16,\u201d Ruffier emphasizes. \u201cIt\u2019s what I felt at that moment. And I think I was much better at writing as a 16-year-old than I am now. I was sometimes much more in contact with my feelings.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe filmmaker concludes by sharing that she has some ideas for future films, but nothing to share yet. Any topics that Ruffier wants to explore next? \u201cI mostly have a desire to work with some people I have worked with on this movie,\u201d she tells THR. \u201cI really want to continue that collaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Angelica Ruffier is bringing La belle ann\u00e9e, which translates to \u201cThe Beautiful Year,\u201d to Rotterdam. In her debut…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[18,117,19,146329,146330,1452,111972,17,327],"class_list":{"0":"post-294101","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-iffr","12":"tag-iffr-2026","13":"tag-international","14":"tag-international-film-festival-rotterdam","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-movies"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115927988508563527","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}