BISSFF2025 | Correspondence 通信计划045：Immortals永生

BISFF Correspondence 通信计划

This program involves conducting brief email interviews with the directors of the international films featured in the festival, in lieu of the traditional Q&A session that follows the screenings. Through this program, we hope to provide a platform for filmmakers to discuss their work and share their insights with our audience in China.

为了跨越种种障碍，开辟更多交流空间，我们设置了“BISFF Correspondence 通信计划”，对部分国际单元的参展作者进行系列访谈，这些访谈将在作品放映后发布在联展各个媒体平台。

Immortals｜Les immortelles｜永生

Myriam Jacob-Allard 米里亚姆·雅各布－阿拉尔

2025｜0:26:40｜Canada｜French｜Asian Premiere

Director: Myriam Jacob-Allard

Interviewer & Translator: Anqi Liu

Coordinator & Editor: Suliko

导演：米里亚姆·雅各布－阿拉尔

采访、翻译：刘安琦

统筹、编辑：苏丽珂

Q1: This film uses soundtracks from vampire films to structure the interactions between mother and daughter, sisters, and grandmother and granddaughter. As a result, the matrilineal family takes on a kind of dramatized mystique. Why did you choose to explore "infatuation" within the context of matrilineal inheritance? In your view, are there particular similarities between the dynamics of family life and established vampire narratives?

A1: I am very interested in the structure of family, this imposed community, and especially in imagining how this structure could exist outside of patriarchal Western society. So, when I started obsessively watching so many vampire films, I realized that the mother was always dead or absent from the vampire's life, as though it were impossible for the mother figure to be associated with immortality, and even more in this passionate context. In this way, the concept of immortality that we see in vampire stories eliminates the notion of family, replacing it with the idea of an everlasting individual, unique and alone. The family dynamics are then either absent or repressed in this narrative: that's why I use the classic vampire storyline to rewrite a counter-story that integrates the matriarchal family, and more precisely those feminine figures, at the heart of it. I was interested in finding a way to reconsider the notion of immortality within a collective context, rather than an individual one.

Q2: The four chapters repeat the theme of encounter-infatuation-separation across different characters, yet each carries subtle stylistic variations. How did you orchestrate the relationships between these chapters to create such an intricate yet coherent rhythm in the end?

A2: The idea was to repeat the same storyline with different sources of found footage quotations. I wanted to emphasize the repetition that is intrinsic to that kind of film. We know by heart those classic stories, yet we listen to them over and over, like we do for Hollywood films or fairy tales. We know the outcome, the progression, the climax, but still, we want to hear them again; it feels comforting, like children do with lullabies. I was amazed that I could tell the same story using exactly the same words, but from different sources, over and over—to realize that all those films, whether they are mainstream or B movies, use not only the same storyline but also the exact same words or sentences. So, I started to collect all those similar quotations ("you are marvelous, " "forever and ever, " "don't leave me, " "I must leave you") to create a collection that summarizes the classic dramatic curve of the vampire film and use them to create those four chapters.

By the repetition, I wanted to see how the story is affected when it repeats itself, but when it is told by different person. With the use of lip-sync, I could let some individuals speak with the words of others: to connect the individual to the collective. So, I started to write the first chapter using longer quotations to establish the story. Instinctively, I used the longer quotations, the ones with more pauses, that are more intelligible. As for the others, until the last chapter, I was left with smaller quotations, quicker rhythms, using much more different sources. The rhythm became very different from one chapter to another, imposed by the cadence of the source itself, which represents well, in the end, those different kinds of relationships (for instance, in the last chapter, when the story is reversed and the granddaughter becomes the vampire who bites the grandmother).

Q3: The use of visual footage is also quite remarkable. Fragments of moving images are deftly arranged against black backgrounds—reminiscent of early cinema’s celluloid tricks for presenting fantastical scenes. But unlike traditional techniques that strive for illusionism, your material—especially faces and hands—openly exposes separation and dissonance. This gives the dramatic expression a subversive quality. Was this sense of contradiction intentional in your technical choices?

A3: I am always interested in those contradictions, even when they are not intentional, because of the tension that emerges from it. I guess I was influenced at first by the aesthetic of old movies, as the first Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror from F. W. Murnau was a silent film; also, theater and puppet show affect the aesthetic of this work. For me, this strategy of using rotoscoping, this old cinema technique, was the idea to go back to the essential, which also echoes collage and scrapbooking techniques. Maybe here, it was not the intention to create an illusion, but rather to reveal the mystery. By returning to its simplest form and using the black background to bring all separate objects together (and failing to reconnect them), I wanted people to use their imagination to construct the rest of the setup of the film: so the film becomes very intimate and different for each person.

Q4: You mentioned that the home movie footage used in the film dates back to 1994. Was these materials originally created as documentary records? And at what point in the creative process did you decide to collage these personal archives with elements of vampire film?

A4: Yes, my family got a video camera in 1994, so my parents started documenting every family event. I also started using this camera to document trivial things from our everyday life. So, we accumulated a lot of footage over the years, which I like to use from time to time in my work.

Immortals, Myriam Jacob-Allard, 2025

Q5: Beyond the characters, you’ve also included fragmented objects, landscapes, and animals as markers that hint at the environment. So, while the film appears straightforward, it actually contains very rich scene design. How do you typically select these visual elements from complex domestic and natural setting? Were there any unexpected choices along the way?

A5: For Les immortelles, I didn't plan to use them right at the beginning: I made the decision after filming the images of heads and hands when I started doing the editing. I thought there were some elements of context missing to refer to the original films. But I didn't want to use props that were directly related to the aesthetic of vampires; I preferred to subvert the codes of this genre. Instead, from each original scene, I looked for some props from the original setup that reminded me of some objects from my daily life. So, I started looking in my family archive footage to find those props: a door, a candle, a plant, etc. It was a bit like digging into my own archive to find trivial objects and collect them. So, I took each archive and used the technique of rotoscoping, which was a long process since the archive was often shot with a handheld camera. But through this long process of cutting out the familiar from their context, each trivial object became precious and gained another significance: being removed from the family context, the objects became something else, related to something collective that anybody can relate to.

Q6: As a huge vampire film enthusiast, I’m especially curious—which works did you draw the soundtracks from? would you be willing to share some films that you find particularly distinctive in this regard?

A6: Because I didn't use the original soundtracks of those films, but only the dubbed version in French, it is not easy to recognize the movies, since the voices are not from the original actors. But the music is still the same, so I think we can relate to or recognize some movies references. That choice was deliberate; I didn't want the references to be too obvious, as I decontextualized everything in the film and brought it to its simplest form. I used about thirty different films to make Les immortelles. The one I found the most interesting and complex was Les lèvres rouges (Daughters of Darkness, 1971): a free adaptation of the book Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: the film tells the story of this first vampire woman. Les lèvres rouges is a co-production of Belgian, French, and German, and one of the vampires is an actress from Quebec. So, it was particularly uncanny for me the first time I saw that film: I felt this culture gap, this dissociation of the familiar and the foreign. And of course, this film is so beautiful and presents a passionate story between female vampires… so very far from Dracula. And Et mourir de plaisir (Blood and Roses, 1960) also presents strong females figures and a reinterpretation of Carmilla. I also used some more mainstream films like Twilight; even if this series of films tried to modernize the vampire tale, they use pretty much the same classic storyline, which was very good for my collection of footage quotations.

Now, I am also curious to hear what your most significant vampire films are as well!

Immortals, Myriam Jacob-Allard, 2025

Q1：这部电影使用吸血鬼电影的音轨来结构四位女性之间的互动，母系家庭也因此被赋予一种戏剧化的神秘感。为什么想要在母系传承中展示“迷恋”的主题？对您来说，家庭生活和既有的吸血鬼叙事是否有一些相似之处？

A1：我一直对家庭这种强制性的团体结构很感兴趣，尤其是去想象这些结构是否可能脱离西方的父权制社会而存在。在沉浸观看各种吸血鬼电影时，我发觉吸血鬼的母亲总是死亡或缺席，仿佛母亲形象不可能与“永生”关联在一起，更不可能出现在如此富有激情的语境之中。通过排除母亲角色，我们在吸血鬼故事中看到的永生概念实际上消除了有关家庭的理念，并以独特而孤立的“永恒个体”取而代之。在这样的叙事中，家庭动力学（family dynamics）要么不存在，要么就是被压抑。所以，我选择用经典的吸血鬼情节去重写一个完全相反的故事，将母系家庭，尤其是那些女性化的形象放置在核心位置上。比起孤立的个体，我更感兴趣的是如何在集合式的语境中重新思考永生。

Q2：影片的四个章节，在不同人物之间重复了相遇-迷恋-分离的主题，但也有一些风格上的细微变化。您如何安排章节之间的关系，使它们最终形成这样交错而连贯的节奏感？

A2：这部作品的构想是，用不同源的拾得影像（found footage）反复征引同一个情节。我想突出的是电影类型内部固有的重复性。人们其实早已熟知这些经典情节，却仍要一遍又一遍地听，就像对待好莱坞电影或童话故事的态度：我们知道结局，也知道发展与高潮，但还是想要再次听到它们；熟悉感令人安心，就像孩子听摇篮曲一样。让我真正惊讶的是，我发现自己居然可以用一模一样的词句，反复讲述同一个故事，哪怕它们完全来自不同的影片——无论是主流电影还是B级片，它们不仅使用相同的剧情结构，甚至连台词都完全一样。所以，我开始收集这些相似的引用（“你真是绝美” “直至永远” “不要离开我” “我必须离开”）来创造一个集合，它概括了吸血鬼电影的经典戏剧弧线，四个章节也据此构成。

通过四个章节的反复，我想试试看，如果由不同的人物组来完成情节重复，故事会发生什么变化。利用对口型的办法，我能让独立人物借用另外许多人的台词和声音说话，个体也由此连结着更具复合性的集体。我先完成了第一章，用较长的引用来建立故事框架，直觉性地选择了那些停顿较多，也更好理解的长句。随后直到最后一个章节，剩下的素材大多是短句，它们节奏更快、来源片段也更加分散。因此，是素材本身的顿挫决定了每一章的不同节奏，而它们最终也很好地反映着人物关系的差异（比如，故事在最后一章发生回环反转——孙女成为噬咬祖母的吸血鬼）。

Q3：电影使用影像素材的方式也非常有趣。在黑色背景中灵活调用活动影像的碎片，这很像早期电影在呈现奇幻场景时习惯使用的胶片技巧。但不同于传统技法对幻觉主义的坚持，您的素材——尤其是人脸和手，很随意地暴露着彼此之间的分离和不协调。这让它们在完成戏剧表达的同时也具有颠覆性，您是否有意通过技术选择来制造矛盾感？

A3：我一直对矛盾性很感兴趣，因为矛盾所产生的张力总是非常迷人——即使有时并非刻意设计。我猜想自己在一开始受到了老电影的美学影响，例如早期吸血鬼电影、茂瑙拍摄的无声片《诺斯费拉图》（Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror，1922），另外，剧场表演和木偶剧也影响了这部作品的美学风格。于我而言，使用对位转描（rotoscoping）这种老式电影技术，是一种回归基础性操作的策略手段，它同时在形式上呼应着拼贴以及剪贴簿的艺术样式。或许正是在这个意义上，影片的意图并非制造幻象，而是揭示神秘。通过回归极简形式，将彼此分离的物体聚集在黑色背景之上（但又无法融为一体），我希望观众可以用自己的想象力去构建影片余留出来的部分。如此，这部电影对每个人而言都可以是私密且独一无二的。

Q4：您提到，影片中使用的家庭录像可以追溯到1994年，这些素材最初仅仅是纪录影像吗？您是什么时候决定，将这些录像与吸血鬼电影的元素拼贴在一起？

A4：是的，我家在1994年买了一台录像机，我的父母因此开始记录所有家庭活动，我也用这台机器记录着日常生活中的琐事。多年下来，我们积累了大量影像素材，而我喜欢不时在自己的作品中使用它们。

Q5：您裁剪出零碎的物件、景色和动物来标记不同环境……如此说来，这部看上去简单干脆的电影，其实包含丰富的场景设计。您一般如何从复杂的家居与自然环境中挑选这些视觉元素？是否存在一些意料之外的选择？

A5：在《永生》（Les immortelles）的制作过程中，我并非一开始就计划使用这些元素。事实上，直到拍完头部与手部影像、进入剪辑阶段以后，我才开始觉得缺少一些指向原电影语境的元素。但我又不想直接使用与吸血鬼美学相关的道具，而是希望尽可能颠覆这一类型中的固有符码。因此，我开始在原片的场景中，寻找那些令我想起日常生活物件的道具。然后，再回到家庭录像的档案之中，锁定这些熟悉的物品——门、蜡烛、植物等等。这有点像是在自己的档案中挖掘琐碎事物，并重新采集它们。之后，我对每个素材都进行了转描处理。由于这些录像多为手持拍摄，转描工作耗费了很长时间，但从既有语境中剪离的过程，也让这些日常物件变得格外珍贵，并获得全新的意义：它们脱离家庭语境，不再只有私人属性，而是成为可能令任何人产生共鸣的集体符号。

Q6：作为吸血鬼电影爱好者，我非常好奇您选择了哪些作品的音轨，是否可以和我们分享一些在你看来很特别的影片？

A6：由于我并未采用电影原声，而是使用它们的法语配音版，想要辨认出处确实不容易——毕竟声音并非来自电影演员。但考虑到配乐的一致，我想大家仍然有可能捕捉或辨认出某些电影索引。这是有意的选择：当我将电影中的所有元素都解构并简化至最纯粹的形式，也不会希望让这些引用显得过于直白。创作《永生》的过程中，我大概使用了三十部影片。其中，最有趣也最复杂的是《暗夜之女》（Les lèvres rouges，Daughter of Darkness，1971），它是对乔瑟夫·雪利登·拉·芬努（Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu）的小说《卡米拉》(Carmilla)的自由改编，讲述了第一位女吸血鬼的故事。在这部比利时、法国和德国的合拍片中，有一位吸血鬼角色是由魁北克女演员扮演的——初看此片时，那种文化错位式的、熟悉与陌生并存的感受令我十分惊异。当然了，这部电影本身也是极其美丽的，与《德古拉》完全不同，它呈现的是女性吸血鬼之间的炽烈关系。《血与玫瑰》（Et mourir de plaisir，Blood and Roses，1960）也塑造了非常强势的女性形象，并对《卡米拉》进行重新诠释。此外，我也使用了一些更主流的作品，比如《暮光之城》（Twilight）系列。尽管这个系列尝试将吸血鬼传说现代化，但它们还是沿袭着基本相同的经典模式，而这非常适合我收集台词片段。

现在，我也很好奇，对你而言，最重要的吸血鬼电影是哪几部呢？

▌more information: https://www.bisff.co/selection/immortals