Q: How did you make your entry into the film industry?

A: I didn't go to film school. My studies consisted of three years in Oriental Languages specializing in Chinese. I started very young doing animation movies in Super 8, then I bought a 16mm camera. Before I directed my first short film, I wanted to gain good technical experiences so I participated in numerous semi-professional short films as chief-camera operator and as an editor. One day I plunged in at the deep end: I wrote a film script with very little means and I shot it with a skeletal crew. We were four in all.

Q: The writing of this script is very elaborate - like all of your short films. How do you go about, in general, the writing process?

A: My work is organized into three very distinct stages: I collect real life stories, sights, places I have visited, then I weave together new happenings, create a narrative and try to make the one correspond to the other.

Q: Are there films, or authors that inspired you in the writing of this movie?

A: My favorite author is J. L. Borges; I discovered him at the age of 18 and he's the only author that I still re-read. His tastes for mixing different styles, the intellectual games he plays with the reader, his humor, influence me a lot. There is a movie that I particularly enjoy, Le Manuscrit trouve a Saragosse, which was directed by Wojaczek Has in 1965. It is extraordinarily well constructed. This made me realize that screenplays of this kind - very complex - work well in films.

Q: What is the theory of Happenstance?

A: It pertains to the theory of chaos and the most famous example of this is the realization that the fluttering wings in Texas will provoke a cyclone in the Pacific. E. Lorenz, a meteorologist smitten with mathematics, was one of the initiators of this theory. Just after World War II - where weather played an essential role in the conflict - Lorenz tried to improve predictions with the help of statistics. He entered into the computers of the time all the data on temperatures and atmospheric disturbances registered during several decades in the city where he lived. Lorenz believed, with reason, in a certain regularity of the weather. But how stunned he was when he saw tha the computer predicted a typhoon bursting on the city in the coming months. Lorenz, certain that the computer made an error, verified all the calculations and noticed that the computer had simplified the data. It had rounded out to 6 figures after the comma the numbers originally rounded out to 7 figures after the comma - what is known in statistics as negligible quantities.

Q: In your films you always show different points of view . . .

A: The characters evolve in the movie without being aware that they are part of their story. That is what is interesting, to show what is hidden from them. We have a minimal knowledge of our own situation. The audience always has the impression of knowing more than the characters in the film. Multiply the points of view in a story while revealing the complexity and everyone can create his own idea of the truth. The smallest detail, the smallest gesture has a major significance, always.

Q: Audrey Tautou has just won the Cesar for Best Newcomer. Whereas Faudel is making his film debut. How was your experience with these two young actors?

A: Audrey, after she read the screenplay, decided to place her talent and her trust in my first film. As far as Faudel was concerned, he has a passion for the cinema and a real desire to make a film. He really wanted it and was very focused. It was also like that with the others.

Q: Will you go back to making shorts?

A: Of course. I don't really see a fundamental difference between long and short films. Too often, one thinks of short films as a jumping off ground for full-length features. Personally, I don't look at it that way. Shorts are a separate style. It is a part of adult cinema. Its main advantage is that it can be done quickly. Shooting a film- whether it is short or long - is a unique experience. It brings about an understanding between all types of people; one person writes the screenplay, a group produces the film, finally all elements come together in post-production. It is truly a privilege to be a part of this profession.