Skip to main content

Olivier Assayas presents Cold Water and Personal Shopper at the 16th FICM

On the fourth day of the Morelia International Film Festival (FICM), a special screening of the film Cold Water (1994) was held, which was attended by French director and screenwriter Olivier Assayas, who was introduced by Daniela Michel, director and founder of the festival.

Olivier Assayas

The director shared that the film was stored for several years due to legal problems of musical rights, before being able to see the light in 1994 in France:

"For a long time, the film was invisible due to legal issues and I fought a lot to get it back to France because they had to renegotiate the musical rights. After recovering them, a digital restoration was made to edit the movie as you will see it now and for that, I am very grateful to the editors".

Among other reasons, Olivier Assayas considers Cold Water one of his favorite films for being a turning point in his creative career and which inspired it to branch towards other horizons:

"This film gave me a lot because, in a certain way, it is an autobiography of my adolescence and of the seventies, which were an important part of my life. It was my fifth film and it was like a break from what I had done before; I went to a simple, clear, light and radical way. We shot in a few weeks and with little budget. I'm glad to show you this movie today."

Cold Water begins in the 1970s with two teenagers, Gilles and Christine, who live on the outskirts of Paris. The parents of both are divorced, and the family life of the kids is nothing short of hopeless. After escaping from their home, they decide to head south, where they hope to join a community of artists. On the way they meet with a party: a bonfire, drugs and rock and roll will be the scenario that will question the suddenly different paths of the two characters.

In the afternoon a special screening of the film was open to the public. There, Olivier Assayas remarked that "everyone is marked by the period in which we live." That's what has made the story special in its trajectory.

In addition to presenting Cold Water, the filmmaker attended the screening of another of his films, Personal Shopper, which competed for the Palme d' Or at the 2016 edition of the Cannes Film Festival.

During the presentation, the French director described Morelia's audience as "beautiful and warm" and told them they would see a plot genre with fantastic touches that have to do with film poetry and a story of intimacies that could cause fear and horror".