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Bruno Dumont presents Camille Claudel 1915 at the 11th FICM

The film Camille Claudel 1915 by Bruno Dumont was screened tonight within FICM’s program of special guests. The gala event began with a presentation by Daniela Michel, general director of the festival, who called the film a masterpiece. Michel reminisced that ever since she saw it at the Berlin International Film Festival she had dreamed of presenting it to the Mexican public.

Dumont, who is attending FICM for the second time, said it was a great honor to present the film to the people of Morelia and added, “Juliette Binoche contacted me. She wanted to make a film with me. I thought for a long time about a project that I could do with her and suggested Camille Claudel. I don’t know if you are very familiar with Camille Claudel, but in France she is very well known. She was a very, very important artist. She was a student and lover of Auguste Rodin and led an extraordinary life because she was a great artist, but at the same time she also had a very tragic life, as you will see in my film. That was the part I proposed to Juliette Binoche. I didn’t give her a script. She worked from the letters I gave her – letters that Camille Claudel had written and from which she based her work.”

After the screening, during the question-and-answer session, the French director said that he based the film on the letters and medical records that explain the facts and behavior of Camille Claudel, as well as on the correspondence that she kept with her doctor. Dumont received support from nurses, real psychiatric patients, and a psychiatrist who uses art therapy.

“Camille Claudel was not schizophrenic, she suffered from paranoia and delusions of persecution. Her insanity was reflected in that she feared that she would be poisoned. For her, Rodin wanted to poison her and she stopped sculpting precisely because she thought Rodin sent spies to steal her ideas. This made her continue with her delusions. In fact, she was not as ill as the others who were suffering from more serious mental illnesses, and therefore it seemed as though she wasn’t sick, but when Paul (Claudel) arrives, he discovers that she was sick. So, the great mystery is, why doesn’t Paul do anything when the doctor says that Camille is ready to return home? I don’t know anything, I simply wanted to film the mystery.”

Asked why he decided to make a film about Camille Claudel’s life, when one had already been made, Dumont responded, “The first film talked about the relationship that existed between Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel. This film is the continuation.”