CATABASE FIRST PART: AD LOVE. 97min., France
Directed by Nicolas Pereira
Two lovers fall into madness.
https://www.instagram.com/nicolaspereiratheater/
What motivated you to make this film?
Honestly, I can’t say exactly why. By 2021, it had been four years since I had last directed a fiction film. In the meantime, I had worked as a screenwriter, script doctor, producer, cinematographer, and even as a content creator for Fashion Week. Yet, despite these experiences, all my personal projects had ended in failure.
2020 and 2021 had been particularly difficult years, both professionally and personally. Everything I tried to build seemed to collapse before it could even take shape. I had reached a point where waiting no longer made sense. If I wanted to make a film, I had to do it now, with whatever means I had.
It all started in November 2021, almost by accident. After a night of working in a nightclub, I was driving home when I got stuck in traffic. On a whim, I took out my iPhone and filmed a few shots inside my car, by pure instinct. Once home, I edited the footage to a piece of music by Wojciech Kilar and color-graded it in the style of a film noir. It wasn’t a calculated decision, but a spontaneous urge—as if I were finally allowing myself to do something I had always been told to avoid by client or the global industry.
And then, without fully realizing it at the time, something happened. These images were already telling a story I had yet to write.
Bit by bit, the film took shape in my mind: the story of a couple who love each other deeply but, despite everything, should not be together. As they struggle, they wear themselves out, burn out, and inevitably age—metaphorically.
Driven by this intuition, I kept filming, alone: a hand hovering over a lit stovetop, a snow globe in the shadows, a flickering lightbulb, an empty room where I smoke a cigarette. Then, I edited a teaser and sent it to Olivia Rose, a fellow acting student whose talent had always left me in awe. I asked her if she wanted to turn this into a film—a short, maybe a medium-length, perhaps even a feature. Less than five minutes later, she agreed to join me.
From that moment on, there was no turning back. Tired of waiting for a project to finally materialize, I decided to do everything myself: film alone with my iPhone, with no budget, no crew, and most importantly, no creative restrictions.
Filming began in January 2022 and spanned eight months—forty days of shooting filled with doubt, setbacks, and improvisation.
But above all, without intending it, this film became a catharsis. A raw, unfiltered reflection of my state of mind at that time. It wasn’t planned, yet perhaps that’s what makes it beautiful. Because it was born out of a deep, personal, and artistic necessity—out of urgency.
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