Les créatures (The Creatures)

A tribute to Jacques Demy, Les Créatures tells two stories: a couple’s life and the birth of a novel. Edgar and Mylène live like hermits. Even though they struggle to communicate, they love each other, and this love will gift them with a child.
As for Edgar’s novel, it seems to write itself out of nothing, while Edgars wanders alone across the island of Noirmoutier. On his strolls, he always happens upon ordinary people.
Through Edgar’s imagination they are transformed into the “creatures” of his novel, much like the pawns of a chess game he invents.
Those creatures will come to life during a closely matched game of chess, in which Edgar does not only fight for his beliefs, but also for love.

Les Créatures is a film that came out of a winter on an island, because for one whole winter Jacques and I, we savored the silence of this season, the tides, and the sound of the sea in front of our house.
We were each writing a script. Mine took place on an island, with a couple: she is mute, while he writes. He seeks inspiration from his observations of the people living on the island, inventing imaginary adventures for them—a classic procedure for an author. I was trying to scare myself, with a game of chess, in which the pawns would be real people.
I was afraid of a crab and I imagined a trap. Michel Piccoli, always ready to embark on film adventures, accepted to be Edgar, with a scar in the middle of his forehead.
Catherine Deneuve accepted to be mute, in quite an old-fashioned way, a very sweet woman. [...]
I think that the same film—or nearly the same film— would’ve been more exciting if I’d dared to be nastier and more obscene. I didn’t go far enough. [...]
And it is actually a love story, between people who don’t talk.

PRODUCTION: Ciné-Tamaris
88, rue Daguerre
75014 – Paris, France
Tel. +33 143226600
elvire@cinetamaris.com

RESTORATION CURATED BY: Ciné-Tamaris and the CNC

WITH THE SUPPORT OF: SHE ECHOES and CHANEL

LABORATORY: Hiventy and the CNC restoration laboratory

WORLD SALES: Jacques-Antoine Jagou - MK2 Films
55, rue Traversière
75012 – Paris, France
Mob. +33 144673082
jacques.jagou@mk2.com
http://www.mk2films.com

PRESS OFFICE: Claro Benoit – MK2 Films
55, Rue Traversière 75012 – Paris, France Tel. +33 144673007
benoit.claro@mk2.com