Michel Gondry was missing from the cinematographic landscape. Director of UFO films like Please Rewind or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, for which he was Oscar-winner, but also brilliant jack-of-all-trades, designer of music videos for Daft Punk as commercials (George addicted to coffee, it's still him), he has been rather discreet in recent years on the big screen.

And now, to the delight of fans, Michel Gondry is back in Cannes to present his latest film, The Book of Solutions, with Pierre Niney and Blanche Gardin, during the Filmmakers' Fortnight.

Dog and beetle

The opportunity for The Hollywood Reporter to ask him a few questions about his long silence. "I did a TV show, a lot of commercials, and then there was the pandemic, and I did a lot of animated shorts for my daughter. (...) So I don't feel like I didn't do anything," he replied. As far as cinema is concerned, it turns out that the subjects did not satisfy him in the end. "I've worked on projects, but at the end of the day, I didn't like them enough. I worked for almost a year on a film about Rin Tin Tin. But in the end, I realized that I didn't like the dog and that I was worried that he would bite me. So I abandoned the project," he said.



And while he was supposed to be in post-production of a film, the director confessed to having spent two days working on a documentary dedicated to the... to a beetle. "I lost the tape and was completely devastated. It was a disaster because I felt like I was remaking history," he said. As for his career without borders, Michel Gondry simply replied: "I think I shared it, half and half, between France and Hollywood. The difference is mostly the big budgets of Hollywood. »

Finally, the one who has always had a penchant for craftsmanship revealed that he does not reject artificial intelligence at all. "When it comes to AI, what I want is to use it in a new way – to come up with a fun idea and create something really different. I have some ideas, but I will not reveal them to you. »

  • Entertainment
  • People
  • Blanche Gardin
  • Michel Gondry
  • Cinema
  • Pierre Niney
  • Cannes Film Festival