I think the desire to make films has always been in me… [But] more than making a film, it was to make an artistic gesture that was important to me. I wanted to create images, a story, and a tone that resembled myself…
I was 15 and it was the summer before starting high school. Even though I was happy at school, with my friends and my family, I felt a certain melancholy. I decided to write about it; about this certain age when you are not totally a child anymore, but not really an adult yet. I feel this feeling is universal and I was living it while writing the movie. To me, being sincere was the only thing that mattered. — Suzanne Lindon
SPRING BLOSSOM / SEIZE PRINTEMPS—Lindon’s directorial debut—is a Paris fantasia about a young, awkward, intelligent adolescent (played by the director) transitioning out of childhood. Bored with the vapid banalities of her peers, she prefers to get lost in books by Boris Vian and dream of musical interludes on the streets of Montmartre. She is struck in particular by the milieu surrounding the Théâtre de l’Atelier, and falls in love with a disengaged actor in his thirties (Arnaud Valois)—or at least in love with the idea of him.
The film is now streaming as part of the virtual Rendez-Vous with French Cinema program, presented by Film at Lincoln Center. See link below for details.
Written and directed by Suzanne Lindon
Rendez-Vous with French Cinema
Film at Lincoln Center
Streaming through March 13.
Suzanne Lindon, Spring Blossom / Seize printemps (2020), from top: Lindon; Lindon; Arnaud Valois and Lindon; North American poster; Lindon; Lindon and Valois. Images courtesy and © the filmmaker and Avenue B Productions.
