Fantasia 2023: Vincent Must Die | Interview with Stéphan Castang

We interviewed Stéphan Castang, director of Vincent Must Die, an entertaining horror social satire, playing at the 27th Fantasia Film Festival.

Two months after premiering at te 62nd Critics’ Week of the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, Vincent Must Die celebrated his North American premiere at the 27th Fantasia Film Festival in Montréal, Québec, Canada; North America’s largest genre film festival.

Random strangers have suddenly started attacking Vincent with murderous intent. His life as an unremarkable man is overturned, and as things spiral violently out of control, he is forced to flee and change his life completely… In this surprising and remarkable debut feature film, anchored by a phenomenal performance of actor Karim Leklou, director Stéphan Castang crafts an upbeat and entertaining social satire.

We had the pleasure of sitting down with the director to chat about the making of Vincent Must Die, his work with Karim Leklou and what amused him about this exciting project.

Film Fest Report: How did you get started on this project?

Stéphan Castang: The film’s producers, Claire Bonnefoy (Bobi Lux) and Thierry Lounas (Capricci), proposed the script to me. At first, I thought about turning it down, saying to myself, with my French vision, that I only want to direct films that I write. But when I read Mathieu Naert’s script, I found it inspiring. It made me want to go further. I liked the initial concept and the fact of approaching violence from this particular angle, without giving any explanation, without any psychology. I found it very interesting to focus on “the truth of bodies”. How do bodies react to aggression? Finally, I felt there was room for me to bring in my own neuroses and fantasies.

Film Fest Report: It is interesting to emphasize the incivilities of everyday life and pull the thread to the point of absurdity. What amused you about this approach?

Stéphan Castang: My background is in theater and I love working with a troupe. A troupe that includes both actors and technical crew. I make no distinction between the actors and the technical crew. Everyone has to play together. The cinematographer has to play with the actors, for example. All members of the technical team have to move at the same time. In the end, we are all one body. In this film, the chemistry was right within the troupe, and there was a kind of jubilation in the fact of doing anything and everything. The dirtier the scenes we shot, the happier we were. And I think we succeeded in transmitting that jubilation to the audience. At least, I hope we did. And that’s one of the virtues of genre cinema. You can talk about things that happen to you in everyday life, and by insisting significantly, you get into the absurd and that generates humor. This humor allows us to laugh at the serious. Genre cinema allows us to experience the present in a different way.

Film Fest Report: Talking about your cast and crew, how would you characterize the dynamic you bring to the shoot? The film sometimes appears spontaneous, giving the impression of a very organic work.

Stéphan Castang: I have a relatively normal team compared to the budget I had, so it’s neither very large nor understaffed. But I do like to make people forget the heaviness. So I often ask the actors to improvise. I often prepare a plot for scenes with very clear lines, but what’s important to me is not so much that the actors recite a text well, but that they play the situation. In this way, they invent. I believe that actors are creators, and my job is to stimulate their imagination. And very often, they have flashes of inspiration that elevate certain scenes and greatly nourish the film.

Film Fest Report: Talking about the way you work with your actors, you’ve been lucky enough to work with some top-quality material: Karim Leklou. Can you tell us about your collaboration?

Stéphan Castang: Choosing Karim gave the film a radical tone. One could imagine other, more obvious actors for an action film. But I was enthusiastic about Karim Leklou. He’s one of the greatest actors in France today. He’s both gentle and brutal. He’s both very ordinary, and at the same time has his own singularity. I also felt that Karim had something of a burlesque body. The character in the film doesn’t try to psychologically resolve what’s happening to him. He never asks himself what he’s done to attract the violence of the people he meets. He doesn’t introspect. But he tries to adapt, like a burlesque hero. He uses his slightly awkward body and impassive face. I think Karim is an actor with that quality. It’s hard to be funny without acting. Being both a physical actor and an actor who plays to his strengths as well as his weaknesses, that’s what makes Karim great. He’s also a true working partner, not only during the shoot, but also upstream and during post-production. Karim is a great actor and a great guy.

Film Fest Report: What’s remarkable about Karim Leklou in your film is how well he embraces the oppressive atmosphere the film unfolds. The sense of oppression is a real strength of the film, thanks not only to the visuals but also to the remarkable music. How did you create this oppressive atmosphere?

Stéphan Castang: I think we worked well with my fantastic team. For the music, I called on John Kaced, a long-time collaborator with whom I’d worked on my short films. As soon as I started work on Vincent Must Die, I called John and said, “We’re going to start working right away.” And all the music was composed before we even started shooting. For me, that’s an important thing. It allows the music not to be subject to the image, to carry its own discourse and, better still, to have its own dramaturgy and tell something that neither the actors nor the images are obliged to carry. This also allowed us to play the music for the actors, the cinematographer and the whole crew, to show them the general tone of the film. The music in this film is created to carry oppression within it. It starts out very softly and then gets carried away. It announces that there’s going to be an attack on Vincent.

Film Fest Report: Many filmmakers complain about the difficulty of producing a genre film in France. What has been your experience? Did you find it difficult to produce your first feature-length genre film?

Stéphan Castang: I can’t really say we had a hard time producing the film. Paradoxically, it took less time to produce my first feature film than my last short. It took three years from the time I started reworking the script to the time I finished editing. The film was shown at Cannes three years and five months after I had the script, which is still a reasonable time. I also believe that things are moving in terms of genre film production in France. For a long time, we were reluctant to produce this type of film in France, but cinephilia doesn’t prioritize types of film. We have some very talented filmmakers like Just Philippot and Julia Ducournau who are shaking things up and telling our present stories in a different way.

Film Fest Report: You were lucky enough to be able to launch your film at Cannes, which probably augurs well for the possibility of producing a second feature?

Stéphan Castang: You never know, but I hope so. The Critics’ Week is a wonderful setting; its team, around Ava Cahen, is delightful. I had a lot of stage fright before the film’s premiere, but it was much less intimidating than the official selection. The Critics’ Week is a human-sized setting, which was just right for our film at the crossroads of genres. Just like here at the Fantasia Film Festival, where the audience is fantastic.

Acknowledgements: Maggie Caroddo, Madison Brek.

The 27th Fantasia Film Festival is running in Montréal, Québec, Canada from July 20th, 2023 to August 9th, 2023.