Five minutes with Fred Baillif

an interview with the director of „La Mif“

The cinema is slowly filling up and the joyful voices of the crowd are giving me a feeling I haven't felt for a long time in the last months of lockdown. Finally it is possible again to celebrate a Berlinale film together. The film team of La Mif is welcomed with loud applause when they arrive at the cinema. Everyone of the crew - the director Fred Baillif, a few of the actresses and family and friends - is smiling and radiates pure joy as they’re walking up to the photo wall. I wait until they’re done with all photos and take the chance to sit down with Fred Baillif for a few minutes before the film starts.

What interests me the most about this quite special topic is why Baillif chose it to portray it in one of his films.

Fred Baillif: „Because I used to work as a social worker and studied it when I was younger. In the beginning i wanted to tell a story about sex abuse and then I thought the best place to talk about such a subject would be to be in a foster home. So I went to this place I used to work and I asked Claudia, the foster home director, to let me meet all the girls from the foster home and working with them. That’s how it started.“

fGR: „So it was a real Foster home you filmed at?“

Fred Baillif: „Yes, and the girls in the film really lived there. We started to do improvisation workshops and get to know each other. And slowly I started to write my story based on their stories.“

Baillif has already made several films with documentary parts, so I want to now what was real and what was scripted in the film:

Fred Baillif: „They told me their personal story and I made up my own story, so nothing is real, but I really got inspired by their real life. So it’s not really documentary - for me it’s fiction and everything is made up.“

I find it pretty impressive that none of the girls had something to do with acting before, because for me they were very authentic.

Fred Baillif: „Yes, I believe that nobody can act like them, because they know what we are talking about - because they really come from there. Through these workshops I tried to teach them how to become actresses. I think they can be great actresses if they know not how to act, but to just express themselves. That’s my philosophy.“

I would love to talk much longer with Baillif, but the time is flying and he has to take another Interview. So I thank him warmly and take my seat to enjoy the film once again.

16:06.2021, Clara Bahrs