his astonishing confession on the set of sex scenes

In Jérémie Elkaïm’s first film, they are alive (2021), Marina Foïs embodies Béatrice. This 50-year-old widow, who has lost her police companion who sympathizes with the FN, experiences a change of heart after meeting Mokhtar (Seear Kohi), an Iranian teacher who has taken refuge in the jungle of Calais. A strong role, inspired by real facts told by Béatrice Huret in her book Calais my love (Calmann-Levy, 2017). In an interview at Madame Figarothe one who brought her story to the screen looks back on her relationship with Mokhtar, and how desire brought them together.

“On paper, everything separates it from Mokhtar: their cultures, their ideas, their language… The only language they share in the beginning is that of the body“, describes Marina Foïs. To start with the look that the two characters exchange for the first time, when Mokhtar and other refugees sew their mouths shut to denounce their living conditions. Later, they get closer, fall in love, and will share intimate moments. “It’s also rare and beautiful to film the desire of a 35-year-old man for a 50-year-old woman to whom he gives pleasure, sometimes without expecting anything in return”underlines Marina Foïs, whose character gradually detaches herself from the influence of her ex-husband and rediscovers her own desire.

A “strange relationship” to sex scenes

In his interview at Madame FigaroMarina Foïs says she has a fairly detached relationship to erotic scenes. “I have a strange relationship with thatshe believes. I have feel like you have a shooting body which doesn’t really belong to me.” According to her, acting “is made of small shames, but they don’t always fit where you imagine them.” Her “little shames” are found elsewhere: “Singing – out of tune – would be more nerve-racking to me than a nude or sex scene.”