Charlotte Colbert (She Will): “The trauma is lived like a horror film” – CinéSéries

Excellent horrific surprise of this end of the year, “She Will” tells how a woman manages to free herself from a trauma by receiving help from mysterious forces. For the release of this film with superb aesthetics, we met the director Charlotte Colbert.

she will : beloved witches

First feature film by the Franco-British artist Charlotte Colbert, she will begins on a train that takes Veronica (Alice Krige) deep in the Scottish countryside. Accompanied by a young nurse named Desi (Kota Eberhardt), this actress has just undergone a double mastectomy and hopes to be able to recover in an isolated place. Shortly after arriving neara forest where many women accused of witchcraft were burned aliveshe is affected by visions and plunges back into a trauma.

As she began her career by filming for a renowned director, Hathbourne (Malcolm McDowell), Veronica suffered abuse from the latter. Aided by mysterious forces, the heroine will take revenge by defying space-time.

Hathbourne (Malcolm McDowell) – She Will ©Alba Movies

Disturbing and dreamlike, she will boasts a superb aesthetic and takes audiences on a journey through several iconic thriller and horror locations, starting on a train and continuing through a mansion, before dropping them into a forest marked by a painful past. A place where history is literally anchored in the earth, where the peat is partly made up of the witches’ ashes, which gives the film its unique visual aspect. The feature film also paints the portrait of an initially icy and then extremely touching heroine, wonderfully embodied by Alice Krige.

Produced by Dario Argento, she will has several points in common with the filmmaker’s films, starting with a fascination with witchcraft. For the release of this fantastic story which manages to stay constantly on the border between the real and the irrational, we met the director Charlotte Colbert, a Franco-British artist from the plastic arts who has just made an impressive entry into genre cinema.

Meeting with Charlotte Colbert

This is your first feature film as a director. Was it a project that was difficult to achieve?

Charlotte Colbert: Yes ! (Laughs) I imagine that there is no first film that is not difficult to make.

she will
Desi (Kota Eberhardt) – She Will ©Alba Films

It is perhaps even more complicated for a genre film.

Charlotte Colbert: Yes surely. In addition the scenario was quite surreal, it really had all these dreamlike elements. We were lucky because the actors answered the call, and that really helped us finance it. It wasn’t a huge budget, we didn’t have a lot of time to shoot. I would so love to have more time so that we can dream together, with the team, during these moments. It was very sporty. (Laughs) There aren’t many digital effects. For some effects, we worked under a microscope with liquids. It made it possible for the microscopic to reflect the infinitely large, the sky, the stars.

The creative teams always understood what I wanted to do. They were all dreamers, pushing the boundaries of questioning. (Laughs)

Did you have actors like Alice Krige or Malcolm McDowell in mind from the start?

Charlotte Colbert: In fact, initially Sigourney Weaver was attached to the project. She read the script and invited me to New York to talk about it. We started developing the script together, which helped bring the project to fruition. Afterwards, we had the choice to wait while she did Avatar: The Waterway or to keep moving forward because we already had the whole team. Afterwards, I met Alice who had read the script without my knowing it. She really wanted to do the project, so we met, and I love this woman! She arrived, she already embodied the character, especially in the way she was dressed.

It was really a very important meeting for me. She’s a truly incredible person, who took everything from the film, all the themes, into her. It was a dream to have him. She was very rock’n’roll. She was always up for running in the mud, at night, in the cold. (Laughs)

she will
She Will ©Alba Films

Dario Argento is producing the film. There are also common themes between she will and some of his movies, like Witchcraft. When did he come in the process?

Charlotte Colbert: He arrived quite late actually. It was marvelous because Dario, before meeting him in the flesh, for me it was a name, a typography. His support has been amazing, he gave us an awesome endorsement. I love his films, it’s so complete on an artistic level. He thinks so much about his aesthetic, the sound, the music, he’s very daring. He liked the film, we were very lucky, he finds that the approach to witchcraft is very realistic. He too is very interested in dreams and fairy tales, the recurrence of images… It was great that he helped us.

she will starts on a train before arriving in a large mansion. There is also the relationship to the forest, to witchcraft and to revenge. You wanted to play with different codes of horror and thriller?

Charlotte Colbert: Yes ! I wanted to play with these codes and subvert them a bit. The film is a bit like this quote that inspired us a lot, and which says: “Why do we learn to be afraid of witches and not of those who burnt them alive?” We had to work with this imagery, with these themes and rethink them in a different way.

She Will
Veronica (Alice Krige) – She Will ©Alba Films

Why did you choose the Scottish countryside as the setting for the film?

Charlotte Colbert: Scotland is a poem, it’s an incredible place! Already, nothing but the landscapes, the skies… We have the impression that a goblin is about to come out from behind a bush. It really is a place that is rich in mythology, in myths. There is already all this aesthetic that exists. Then, the place where we filmed is where the last woman to be executed for witchcraft came from. A lot of women and men have been executed for witchcraft in Scotland, oddly enough, more than anywhere else. One of the great massacres took place there.

There was a governmental desire to obliterate them, to erase them, to destroy them completely, to leave no trace. Their ashes are there.

she will
Veronica (Alice Krige) – She Will ©Alba Films

But you didn’t want to make a period film?

Charlotte Colbert: I find that there is something interesting in this idea of ​​cellular history, in the idea that we really carry our ancestors within us. There was something interesting in the idea of ​​a trauma of a woman today who awakens, stirs up a very old common trauma. And there is a kind of communication, mutual aid, which goes beyond space-time.

For you, horror cinema is the most effective genre for addressing the issue of trauma?

Charlotte Colbert: Yes, in any case it is the most honest. The trauma is lived like a horror movie. It’s a bit like the movie The Father with Anthony Hopkins, on Alzheimer’s disease. It’s a horror movie ! Which makes him hyper authentic in his way of treating Alzheimer’s.

she will
Veronica (Alice Krige) – She Will ©Alba Films

How was your collaboration with Clint Mansell and the work on the sound, which is extremely important in the film?

Charlotte Colbert: It was super important for me to create a voice for the earth and therefore to use a choir. And in sound design, we worked a lot with static electricity and the idea that electricity connects us to the earth. We wanted to take that up in the music, to link the voices to this electronic side. The voices represent that of Veronica’s past (the character of Alice Krige, editor’s note) and those of these witches who communicate. The first voice needed to have a lot more vulnerability.

she will is to be discovered since the November 30, 2022 At the movie theater.



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Charlotte Colbert (She Will): “The trauma is lived like a horror film” – CinéSéries


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