A middle-class French family enjoy the last days of summer at home together by the pool.
Lawyer Delphine (newcomer Sophie Colon) supports her husband Antoine (Matheo Capelli) and their two adopted children, Adia (Frédérika Milano) and Aslan (Gem Deger, who co-conceptualized the story), who is preparing to leave to study in New York. Then the phone rings. A colleague of Antoine’s confides in Delphine that her husband has spoken of having had illicit sexual relations with one of their children. Delphine, and the scene, freezes.
A devilish thriller that delights in challenging your expectations and your sympathies, Endless Summer Syndrome is a unique proposition. With the film released this month by up-and-coming distributor Altered Innocence, I sat down with the team behind the film over Zoom to discuss lockdown creativity, national morality, and embarking on a uniquely familial project without bumpers.
As a result of scheduling and logistics, it’s an interview of two halves: first a conversation with Gem Deger and Sophie Colon, then a conversation with Kaveh Daneshmand, the latter conducted with his collaborators remaining in the call. Much like the film in question, some revelations don’t come clearly into focus until the midpoint, and everyone has a different perspective to share and a surprising story to tell.
Gem, how did you and Kaveh come to collaborate on conceptualising this film together?
Gem Deger: It was early 2021, and we were facing the second big lockdown. We were depressed, much like everyone else. So as the lockdown began, we said okay, let's try to make the most out of this. Let’s shoot a film, something small that we can handle with our own resources. We didn't know what. So, for the entirety of February 2021, we brainstormed.
Initially, we planned to make a horror film. But as we went on, we came up with this phone call. A mother receives a phone call that claims that her husband is having an affair with one of her kids. Originally, it wasn't even adopted kids. We made them adopted later, so that it was a little bit more acceptable. We outlined the story over a month.
We wanted to make it in English, but both of us were based in Prague. It also didn’t really feel natural for an English family to go through this. So we thought— okay, let's make it in French and it’s a French family. By mid-March, we had the entire story. Kaveh went to write the script, and I went to learn French. Come September, we were shooting.
I think it's fitting that you made it in French, because there's a history of what you might call ‘French incest dramas’. This feels the right language, the right culture to be making this film in.
Gem: That's what we thought too. We’re perceiving a French family as outsiders, and the French audience has said that it doesn't feel French enough. But everyone who is not French, they really like the film. I hope we didn't offend anyone.
It feels warm towards that strand of French cinema, a love letter of sorts.
Gem: Yes, exactly. What we wanted to make was a homage to early 2000s French cinema, especially the films of François Ozon. It’s heavily inspired by what came before.
The film walks a delicate line between comedy and tragedy, much as the characters walk delicate lines in their relationships. How did you find that balance?
Gem: That came as a surprise to us. We never considered it to be a black comedy. The distributors came on board and started to market it that way. I understand that thinking. A similar film in recent years was May December.
It's interesting to think on queer audiences specifically in regard to the black comedy. I think they perhaps cotton on to that tone and find the humour in this darkness easier. Altered Innocence have picked this film up in the US, which is fantastic.
How do you feel about a queer-focused distributor having picked up the film? Would you say this is an LGBTQ niche film, or is it broader than that? By categorising it as LGBTQ, you almost spoil the twist.
Gem: It wasn't our intention to categorize this as a queer film. We sent the film to queer festivals and all of them refused it because of the subject matter. They don't want to explore this incest theme, they don't want to make that acceptable. So they really had some strong opinions that this is not a queer film.
What I would say is that I don't think this is a queer film, but I think it's a drama with a bigger reach that has queer elements.
I think it's useful for you. When I saw the film at Raindance, I thought: This is great, but I don't think it's marketable, I don't know how it sells. I'm glad Altered Innocence found you and picked the film up, because I feared I might not see it again.
We're really grateful for Altered Innocence. Their involvement was a game changer, because it gave us the exposure that we hoped to get. I'm glad they like the film, and that the American audience is perceiving it similarly to us. It’s one of the best things that has happened to the film.
Sophie, this is your first major film role. Tell me how you came to land the part.
Sophie Colon: It was a big surprise. Laurine [Bauby] was in charge of casting. We’d met, but we hadn’t worked together. She showed my profile to Kaveh and Gem, who gave me a screen test of the key scene of the film: the phone call. Two days later, I got a call back: “okay, it’s you”. I’ve worked in publicity, and usually there are multiple stages to these things.
I met Kaveh, Gem, and the crew, only one month before the shoot— in Paris for rehearsals. The night before rehearsals started was the most stressful night of my life. I was convinced they would realise that I don’t have the experience, that I’m not the person they were looking for.
I think yours is one of the most extraordinary film performances of the year, up there with the French greats even. So the fact that it's a debut is remarkable.
Gem, tell me about the casting process at large. You cast yourself as the son— was it decided right from the early stages of conceptualising that you were going to play that role?
Gem: We didn’t specify that role specifically, but the plan was always for Kaveh to direct and for me to act. It was obvious that I'm going to be the kid [laughs], there wasn’t any surprise there.
Casting Sophie was the easiest thing. She doesn't know this, but we knew it had to be Sophie from her headshot alone. The moment we saw her face, we knew. Then she sends us a five-minute self-tape. Kaveh was like: She doesn't even need direction. Just bring her to the set, have her do this, and we have the film. It was the easiest casting process I've ever been through. She was shining, and I agree with everything you said about Sophie. This film exists thanks to her.
How much was as directed, and how much was instinctual? How do you take your character through those stages of grief with such realism and raw believability?
Sophie: Before rehearsals even, Kaveh asked us to write biographies for our characters, to grant them some depth. The film takes places over the course of a mere three days, so we wanted to establish who they are outside of that brief timeframe. It was clear that Delphine is the breadwinner. The roles are reversed, the husband is more-or-less housebound. She’s a strong character with a lot of responsibilities, but we also see that there’s a core weakness in her. She lost a child, and she’s built up this shell, a lot of pent-up emotions. It was important for me to have those emotions come through in the eyes, so that the audience could see that history in the way that I look at things.
Gem, how did you meet Kaveh? I know he’s a creative who wears many hats.
Gem: We met in 2017. I was 19 years old, new in Prague. I skipped film school, I instead wanted to learn from the veterans of the industry in town. So that's how we met.
We became best friends, and began to see each other on a daily basis, as he also lives nearby, a 15-minute walk. This was all before we even decided to collaborate on a film, so it was really organic.
Is this film truly about incest, or is it about families? I feel like the incest logline is a smokescreen for something deeper and more nuanced.
Gem: Our intention was to ask a question rather than to make a statement. Family love is a place where everybody has unconditional love for each other, but to what extent? We can take that love to an extreme to the point that it can become something toxic, dangerous. We wanted to raise a question by discomforting the audience.
Sophie: Every year in France, we get an incest movie. It’s kind of hidden, but the reason why is that intellectuals end up in relationships, no matter how clearly defined, with their kids. It’s part of a certain culture of the intellectual milieu in France. It’s a dirty, disgusting image, but it’s there. It think it’s why the question of consent comes back on the table in France more than in other places, that there is this weird culture of intellectual grooming. It’s there in the film: Antoine is a writer. He’s this type of character, this type of France. No matter how we look at it, the moment that Gem’s character is referred to as a kid, even though adopted, it’s incest. Adopted or not, you have a responsibility towards your children. That’s why this film is important.
Those are really interesting reflections.
Watching you all interact on stage after the film at Raindance, and listening to you now, there's a clear sense that you had fun together working on this film, becoming a kind of family group playing a family.
Gem: It was magical. That’s the one word to wrap up the entire experience.
The moment we entered the Chateau, France declared national lockdown. So we locked down together. We all lived together, actors and crew. So everybody got to know each other very well.
Many filmmakers say similar things after they wrap their film that, you know, they really became a family. But I feel like we were actually a family. We slept together, woke up together— what I mean by that is some people were on the same bed. Obviously, we gave the best room to Sophie because, you know, she's our star. But everyone else ate shit, you know.
[Kaveh joins the call]
Kaveh: I don't know if this is the right call. It's some people talking about sleeping with each other.
Kaveh, welcome! I'd like to ask you about the delicate balance that the film walks between comedy and tragedy. It appears that you lean more towards tragedy in your reading of the film, but some audiences feel that it's a comedy. I'd love your take on that.
Kaveh: I’ve been discussing this with Gem for a while. Of course, there is comic relief in the film, there are scenes that are specifically funny. But sometimes when I hear people giggling at key moments I think, well, is that some form of defence mechanism?
To be honest, the intention was to create a slow-burn thriller. In the end, having a thriller with moments of life and energy and softness, that plays in our favour. But I was leaning towards the tragic side of the story.
Was the tone of the film as you imagined it on the page, or did it develop and evolve as you as you brought it to life?
Kaveh: It changed so much— this was an organic creature, the script kept changing during pre-production. I worked with Laurine and Gem on the story. Then, in the rehearsals in Paris, we worked with the four actors.
It went through changes during the shoot. We were shooting during the day, and in the evenings we discussed the next day’s scenes and kept changing them. If you look at the script and compare it, it's the same film, but the nuances and details changed. The actors brought so much to the characters that wasn’t there on paper.
Before you arrived, we talked about this lineage of French incest dramas. Are there any specific films or directors that inspired you in making this film?
Kaveh: The main inspiration was Swimming Pool by François Ozon, which doesn't have incest. Of course, there are other films. We watched plenty of Chabrol, and many others from French cinema. But our inspiration from the French films that we watched was mainly in their ways of storytelling, how they would tell the stories, their visual treatments.
Especially Ozon, because he's so simple, so humble, but— at the same time— so detailed and nuanced. He deals with a lot of sexual tension in his films, not necessarily incest, but always related to intimacy.
This film is one hell of a calling card. The simplicity and scope are what you'd expect of a debut feature, but the topic— you could blow yourself up before you’ve even started. I'm curious as to what made you embark upon an incest drama as a debut feature, in French no less.
Kaveh: It was suicide. I don't speak French. I don't know French culture. My first time in Paris was for the rehearsals. It was my first time directing intimacy. I had no background in portraying queer themes on film. So, you can imagine, on the plane to France to shoot this film, I felt like I was putting myself in an oven, that I'm just going to grill myself and it would be over. I was very scared.
But we had a fantastic team. This is not really ‘my’ film. In reality, it's a film built by fourteen people. Each brought their own opinions and thoughts, and we discussed every moment of the film together. I’m very happy with what we did.
I love the fact that this film is about the blurring of the boundaries between a family and the production process itself has blurred the boundaries of authorship.
Kaveh: Those days we spent in Corrèze are memories that I will take to my grave. We became a family. The actors stayed in the rooms of their characters. It was becoming hard to differentiate between the shoot and outside of the shoot, because it was all starting to merge. I think if we had stayed longer, things would have gotten complicated.
When I saw the film at Raindance, I thought ‘Well this is great, but who’s going to pick this up?’ It’s a hard film to market. Altered Innocence are a fantastic fit, and they're a queer distributor. Do you consider ENDLESS SUMMER SYNDROME a queer film, or is that just a useful way to pigeonhole it?
Kaveh: That depends on the angle from which you look at the film, right? If you look at it from Sophie’s point of view, then it becomes a psychological thriller about a mother who wants to investigate the truth. If you look at it from the point of view of the family, then of course, there are a lot of queer elements.
We’re extremely happy with the work that Frank and his team at Altered Innocence have done. I think sometimes the people whose profession and expertise are to distribute films know better how to package them. And how they’ve packaged the film in no way conflicts with how I perceive it.
What’s next for you?
Kaveh: Gem is cooking something exciting and I'm helping him with the cooking. I'm cutting the vegetables. That project, a cross-genre horror film, is approaching pre-production.
I'm also developing a new film, which is again in Paris. This time, it has some Iranian elements in it. It's a political thriller. I will hopefully have the honour to work once again with Gem, Sophie, and many of the cast and crew that I worked with on this film.
What do you want audiences to take away from this film?
Gem: I would like people to either really love it or really hate it. Sometimes we get comments saying that oh, this is way too fucked up, this is not acceptable. The way that we're tackling the concept of incest is a bit different from other films. Reading angry comments makes us happy because we're like, oh yeah, we did it. So I guess I would say upsetting I would like to upset them.
Sophie: It's interesting to hear from audiences. Many women, notably, spoke to me after the screenings. They tell me that it’s refreshing to see such a strong female character. Strong, yes, but also very detailed and intense.
I think what really matters is that this movie is generating discussion. It makes people talk about it. That’s what matters the most, whether the reviews are good or bad.
Kaveh: I hope they have a good ride, go through an emotional process, and that thoughts arise from it. What thoughts, what emotions, I’m not there to dictate, because films work differently for each of us. We watched Emilia Perez last night, and everyone felt differently about it. It's hard to direct the emotions of the audience. The only hope I have is that they would say ‘that 90 minutes was worth it’.
Endless Summer Syndrome is in U.S. theaters and on VoD now from Altered Innocence. With thanks to Méthode Lacour-Cartau for interpreting for Sophie Colon.