Laurent Capelluto and Chiara Mastroianni, "A Christmas Tale," IFC Films, 2008

I find it interesting that "A Christmas Tale" could be compared to other films about dysfunctional families reuniting for the holidays, which seems like a predominantly American plotline.

That's actually the idea that I started with, making a holiday film. It's a genre in and of itself, particularly an American genre. You have the dysfunctional family, they're going to have conflict, and then they'll try to work it out by the end. This is really how I work a lot of the time -- I pick a genre and work within it. Christmas or Thanksgiving movies, as a genre, are sort of imperfect. I was thinking I could improve upon some of the rules, which is what I did. So you start with this absolute cliché from America, except all the characters are French.

When you screened the film in San Francisco, you said during a Q&A that it's a producer's lie that film is expensive. It's not?

The film running in the camera? It's not that expensive at all, if you look at it. It doesn't put the budget up or down. It's the salaries that are expensive. So now I can explain to you, it's so simple. It's a lie: "You are running too much film." That is not what the producers are scared about. It's that you [would need] one more month of editing.

But compared to shooting with an HD camera, isn't it still relatively costlier?

It's really absurd. Let's take a great American director, Michael Mann. He fascinates me. The first time I saw "Collateral," I thought, "Wow, they spent so much money." For sure, the other one with Pacino and De Niro was less expensive. I know how you can do that kind of lighting on "Heat." You can do it with nothing. Look at Sidney Lumet's movie, ["Before the Devil Knows You're Dead"]. You don't need that many lights. With a digital camera, the tracking in the building during the night -- come on! They have to light the whole street to have it right on video, which means that it was more expensive. It's obvious, you can see that onscreen. This strange film I quite like, about the serial killer... "Zodiac." That was awfully expensive! The last Batman movie had a digital camera. But film, it's not that expensive. You'll see. In five years, they won't rent the camera; they'll give them to you.

I mean, we are speaking about such an amazing lady. You have to be brave when you write such a line because you are trying to make a good joke, and in French, maybe no one will laugh because no one knows her. I'm an absolute fan of Angela Bassett. I think she's a great, great actress. In the biopics, she is so moving. She's very rare. It's something that doesn't happen that much, to see an actress inventing a new way of showing "woman" onscreen, and a new way of being beautiful. You remember this great film, a science fiction movie: "Strange Days"? Her beauty was new and shocking. Plus, I love her butt in "Vampire in Brooklyn," have you seen this film? Great film. Great butt. And her performance as Tina Turner? Beautiful legs, too.

[Additional photos: Emmanuelle Devos; Arnaud Desplechin on set - "A Christmas Tale," IFC Films, 2008]

"A Christmas Tale" opens in limited release on November 14th.

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beth schneider

I would like assistance on getting in contact with Aaron Hill to get contact info for Arnaud Desplechin. The director has no contact info on imdb and our company, Agape Media International, would like to speak with him regarding a directing project. Thank you for your assistance. Peace, Beth Schneider, beth@agapemedia-film.com