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SXSW 2024 Interview With The Dreamy Tense Fairy Tale, Hunting Daze Filmmaker Annick Blanc

The dark fable Hunting Daze was seen at SXSW 2024 by enthusiastic crowds. The film fest is known for finding hidden gems. The kinds of movies that are so innovative and fresh they defy definition. Writer and director Annick Blanc’s Hunting Daze is one of those films. It blurs the lines between fantasy, thriller, and horror in wildly audacious ways that hold audiences in a suspended state of anxiety until the unexpected ending that is both tragic and triumphant. I talked with Blanc about her movie, finding the incredibly talented cast, and writing power in vulnerability.

Tracy Palmer- Hello, how are you? Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me. I really appreciate it. I saw your movie I really enjoyed it is deceptively powerful.

Annick Blanc- I like that. I will take that from you.

TP- Tell me tell me how this movie came about?

AB- Yes, I wanted to talk about this habit. I think we have to kind of just live our daily life as the world crumbles around us and just continue partying, continue living the next day, and hoping the group will save us, the society will save us, or the others should do it. Or I don’t have time to do it, or it doesn’t concern me. And I wanted to kind of point fingers at that. But I wanted to make the viewer live it from the inside, right? So I wanted to make this very intense movie where you don’t have time to think it’s like your daily life, right?

It just goes one minute after the other; there’s something new, and you just have to react instinctively to what’s going on. And I wanted the viewer to kind of live that which makes this movie with this mix of job, this thriller that kind of you don’t have time to think, and you kind of live that. And in the end, you have to face the aftermath. And I wanted to end with the principle of catharsis to have people go to the extent of it. You continue doing what it becomes and have people reflect upon that.

TP- So that’s been important for you to show the vulnerability of really the two minorities, the woman and the Aboriginal man because they are very vulnerable. But neither one of them originally seems to get how much danger they’re in or how much danger they should feel like they’re in.

AB- Yeah, I want to because they are in a vulnerable position. But they are strong characters. And that’s what I wanted to show that we can remain strong, even if we’re the minority. We need to shake the world and continue pushing what we believe in. And I wanted to show those models of people. They will kind of face the establishment and try to shake it, even if it’s kind of a lost cause that they won’t let go and that they will remain themselves, you know, and that’s what it happens to both characters, and that’s what I intended to do.

TP- That’s very interesting because both of them are in danger. But as you point out, they ultimately are the answer to the riddle. They are the ones who affect the most change around them, making them both the most vulnerable but also the most powerful of all the characters.

AB- Exactly. I think that the more you have to lose, the less you’re ready to lose it. So that’s also part of the metaphor I wanted to do. Those five men have everything; they have a lot to lose. So they’re scared in the end. But at first, they look like they’re the ones that are most powerful because they have a lot, right? And they think they are strong because they have a lot, and they always have a lot. So, like, they never had to really fight and they always win. So they think they’re the most powerful, but the one that had to fight all the time had the real power and the one that had nothing to lose. They’re the ones that can change the world. Right? So because they don’t mind burning the world down.

So, for me, I wanted to create with those characters, and that was important to me. So the guys, they think like that’s what they keep saying, in the beginning, you can be tough like a man, we’re tough like we’re here we’re not scared, and in the end, they’re the most cowardly of them all, you know. And the ones that looked like they needed help didn’t cower at all. They’re the most courageous of them all. So I wanted to kind of show that sometimes It’s all a show. That toxic masculinity, they think that they’re the strongest. But in the end, there’s a lot of insecurity and fear that hides behind that.

TP- We[minority groups] are used to being vulnerable. And so we don’t have to hide or mask who we are in quite the same way. They[the characters] can live a more free or authentic life, which allows them to be more moral in the end because they make the right decisions.

AB- And when you kind of accept that you’re vulnerable, you kind of accept life, and you kind of listen to life more in the situation. And because we’re all vulnerable, like we all want to try to make ourselves believe we’re safe. But it’s not safe to be a human. It’s never safe to be a human. Especially not nowadays. You’re always facing heartache and sickness. In the end, whether you like it or not, at some point, it comes for you, so you are vulnerable.

So, let’s stop trying to think we’re invincible and accept that condition. But how can you help that condition? By listening to what the earth, what life, is telling you? You know, it’s funny because creating our comfort was destroying our Earth, but it makes no sense. Because the Earth is our comfort. It doesn’t matter how much comfort we have; we’re pretty much done. That’s it. So, like, yeah, that’s kind of all the behind that fable.

TP- And Hunting Daze does have that very kind of dark fable, fairy tale quality to it, even though there are some pretty gruesome things happening. Tell me about your decision to make it look so pretty but have such dark themes.

AB- I think that to incite change, I needed to point out and show the dark things we can go to, but to
make them bearable. And to make the viewer go through this quest with us through this journey. I needed to seduce them first and open their heart by making them love those characters. Love being in that room with those characters. Love this movie, like just feel like,

I think you kind of feel you’re part of the pack, right? The movie kind of sucks you in like that. And you wanted to be there, but like it, I wanted to give them the deception, right? That if you blind yourself to what is really going on because you enjoy yourself too much, or you choose to enjoy yourself instead of seeing the truth, then this can happen. So, for me, it was important to create that very warm, world that then will need to be destroyed. And I wanted the viewer to kind of live that with the characters.

TP-Oh, man, he, I mean, there are undertones of supernaturalness, and we never really, we
never really know. Is he[The Aboriginal Man] magical? Is he special? Was that intentional? Did you want to kind of give him that he may be there’s something to him? Maybe we should be listening to him more instead of partying and then, you know, at the end doing not so great.

AB- Thanks. Yeah, for me, this character was very mystical, you know, is it sometimes like with Noubi[Ndiaye], the actor, we created it together. Like he helped me push it push it further. But the idea
was this character could even be God coming down to challenge the men. And, like, see, will they do good? If we try that, you know, he seems to know more than them all the time. He’s not scared at all; where he should be the most scared, he challenges them. Nature is coming.

That’s kind of what he hints at in his monologue when he speaks to us. Is nature trying to also just shake men and see what they can do. So he, he’s all that, but he could also be just this guy that we don’t know, we don’t understand, and we’re scared of him. We project all that onto him, too. Right? So he is all of this together. And Noubi is a very, very interesting human being, but he’s brought that to his relationship to nature to us from Senegal. The relationship to nature And to death is very different. And so he brought that also with them like, it’s a little bit there’s a bit more mystical way to live life, you know? And so he brought some of that.

TP- Tell me how you found this cast. I mean, this guy[Noubi] is I mean, amazing. But in general, how did you come across all of these people?

AB- It was a very interesting casting process. And we found the guys first, as we did a lengthy audition process, I had something so specific in mind. I think it was the toughest to find the guys. They were able to be so tough, so funny, and so vulnerable. Because sometimes some actors are not funny. Some actors are tough guys, but I had a problem to really break down. And like I was looking for all of that. Together. And, and, and I had something they were all written with, like a patchwork of my friends in my head. So, I had a very specific idea of how they should sound or be and the kind of humor they would each have.

And so, so it was interesting because when we found them, it was always kind of clear. Yeah, it’s funny because one of them, the one that plays Phillip, the veterinarian, we saw him first for one row, and we’re like, nah, it’s not quite him. Maybe he can try this other role. And then when he tried this other role, it was not yet his role. And he reads a little bit like what Phillip should be. I talked to my casting director, I’m like, I think he’s the other one.

And she’s like, yeah, but I’m not making him come a third time for an audition because he’s a big actor. So we better make sure that that’s how he should be. He was there for an audition that time for Kevin, which is the sweet guy. So I was like, okay, let’s forge this is the scene and just make fun of her like, you don’t really like her. I know that’s not how it was written. But try it. And he did it. And when we told him, he was like, he would have gone a third time. That wouldn’t have been a problem. Sometimes, it was kind of clear. You know, they were just like, even if they were playing in a way it was like, No, this is the this is this guy.
Nahéma, we said no to seeing her five times because like she had done films before where she was always a vulnerable victim, very tomboy, she had a shaved head. And there were previous films where she had no sensuality. We’re like, oh, no, we don’t think that’s it. And then we saw everybody else. At some point, I was like, we can’t find her. So then I asked, maybe we should see her, and we did, and like, at the audition was clear, it was her all along. So two years of lost time, refusing to see her. And then to meet her.

And Noubi, we were trying to cast nonprofessional actors. So we also needed somebody who spoke another language. So we made Facebook calls and all that, and he sent his self-tape. And he kind of entered the self-tape like that, like this smile, very mystical. And he came to tell us the story. The audition was to tell us a story in your own language that we can’t understand. And he told us the story. And it was just the character I had envisioned all along. Like it was just him. We all saw him. It was like it was him. And then we met him in an audition. And again, it was just super clear.

He was very stressed because it was his first big feature, right? The first scene he shot with so many well-experienced actors. He was so stressed, but the camera loves him. You know, he’s so vibrant that, like, he doesn’t have to do much. He just exists. And so it was a great, great encounter. He’s a great person. And a great actor. Yeah. You just can’t take your eyes off of him. Yeah, that’s very cool. But I needed a character that could speak a language we didn’t understand. Right? I needed that. I needed someone that you see and you love intently.

TP- Yeah, even before you understand anything he’s saying. There’s just something about him that you’re drawn to. You don’t understand what he’s saying, but you understand him as a human. Oh yeah, that absolutely comes through. Where was this shot? It’s so pretty.

AB- It was tough because the only thing that was important for me was that they looked far enough so that they couldn’t go for help. Right, so we needed to feel that we were far up north in Canada, in Quebec, but it’s too expensive to go. So we have to stay close to Montreal. This was only two hours away from Montreal, but in finding those, we found this woman who had this around her house.

She had this terrain, this land, and it was full of pine trees instead of leaf trees, which is more than in that area. It was just this little microclimate that looked like the north, but that was only two hours away from Montreal. So we were very lucky to find this place, but we really looked hard to find stuff. We just went and really looked. A lot of time spent on the road looking for those locations, but it paid off.

TP- It’s gorgeous. Tell me about your film influences and who made you want to be a filmmaker
and who still influences you today?

AB- So the first one that made me want to become a filmmaker was when I was seven. It was a French comedy called The King Of The Joke, and I thought there were two comedians trying to make a living, and I was like, they look like they’re having so much fun. That’s what I want to do with my life. Never mind the fact that they were broke and that they were having a hard time, I just looked at the fight and that they were making jokes and having fun as a living thing. So that was the first one, and then I went to University and I loved short films, but I loved experimental film. I watched all the Michael Snow films.

I really like what I took from that. It is just like pushing the cinematic apparatus to its maximum using the most you can. But I also love the rawness and trueness of the cinema of Michael and Kubrick. I love the anxiety of Kubrick’s films, using the camera to make the audience feel claustrophobic or crazy. The horror film The Witch was a great influence. An apple can become the scariest thing to a little child. Shouting can become the scariest thing; you never know. So I think of what is a masterpiece of writing, and I tried to use that because I had very little money. I don’t think I made it as good as he did. I did push my budget a bit to its limit, but I look up to them. I really look up to them.

TP- I love all of those one more final question. What’s next for you?

AB- What’s next for me? I have a children’s movie that we’re financing right now. It’s another exploration but I think it’s a lot of fun to be making scenes marvelous when you’re speaking to children. You just want
to make them dream and have fun. So I think it’s a lot of fun. It takes me in a different direction than this one, which was very intense. But I do want to make another horror film. Maybe a bit more intense. And then this so I’m trying to find the right one. It’s coming. It’s starting to be knitted in my head. It’s not quite clear yet.