[press conference for
Atlantique (2019) at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival] I had so many strong emotions - a lot of things left a deep imprint on me. There are three precise things: when these boys leave by sea they do this without telling anybody - they just left from one day to the next, and that's something that really struck me. They don't say goodbye - they just go, they leave - they only call their family or relatives once they've reached their destination. I read an article called "The Widows of the Sea" - a group of women was questioned and in their own words they talked about their experience - they had been waiting for a son, a brother, a husband who never came back - they couldn't even set up a football team because there weren't enough men in the neighbourhood. The way people view the ocean was also something I wanted to show in the film - how they see the ocean in a different way after all these events; it's fascinating yet very threatening because many young people drowned at sea, so I started to view the ocean differently.
