Switzerland will be represented by “Heldin” at the Oscars

With “The Deal”, projected on the Piazza Grande of the Locarno Festival, the Lausanne director Jean-Stéphane Bron signs a series on negotiations around nuclear between the USA and Iran around 2015. Consequently, A project born from a taste marked for the behind the scenes of power.

It is an ambitious bet that Jean-Stéphane Bron noted: in a series of fiction. In addition, the ultra-sensitive discussions around the Iranian nuclear program in a fiction series. Similarly, “I have always been fascinated by behind the scenes. Therefore, ” he told Keystone-ATS a few days before the start of the Locarno festival. Moreover, “What’s going on off-champ often says much more than press conferences.”

Negotiation in camera – Switzerland will represented "heldin" oscars

The idea of “The Deal” germinated from the negotiations carried out in French-speaking Switzerland. Meanwhile, which led to the Iranian nuclear agreement of 2015. Nevertheless, The switzerland will represented “heldin” oscars director wonders how a compromise of this magnitude is built, far from the cameras? For example, “I remember these images of journalists sitting in the halls of the hotels, waiting for something to tell them … Moreover, I wanted to tell what is playing on the other side of the closed doors.”

The series. Meanwhile, co -produced by RTS and Arte, concentrates over ten days most of these marathon negotiations in a Geneva hotel, created with images shot in five different hotels. Meanwhile, “In reality, the rounds spread over two years. We condensed everything in a tight dramaturgy,” explains Jean-Stéphane Bron. The result: an apnea diving in a tense closed do.

To build his scenario. the filmmaker met the accounts available in the international press, the Memoirs of Diplomats like those of Wendy Sherman (“Not for the Faint of Heart”/”To be advised against sensitive souls”) and expert analyzes. “No access switzerland will represented “heldin” oscars to internal sources. but a fairly dense fabric of indirect testimonies, of researchers in particular, which allowed us to recreate credible situations,” he said.

Neither good nor bad – Switzerland will represented "heldin" oscars

One of the major challenges was to avoid a Manichean reading of the conflict. “Iran is often caricatured in Western fictions, regrets the French -speaking filmmaker. We wanted to show a real, human complexity, in each camp.”

The anchor point: a character of Swiss diplomat, neutral observer and pivot of the story. “We are really in an attempt to understand the other,” he insists. “That’s also, diplomacy: getting into the opponent’s shoes to glimpse a compromise.”

Discreet shooting

If the series allows itself a narrative reinvention. especially with an imaginary love story, it has been shot in great discretion. “Not to hide anything. ” specifies Jean-Stéphane Bron, “but in order to avoid any political or diplomatic pressure, especially for Iranian actors.”

All switzerland will represented “heldin” oscars the actors embodying members of the Iranian delegation live in exile. Additionally, “It was a pragmatic choice. It would have been too delicate to have roles play as sensitive to actors still living in Iran. ” said the director.

The word “deal”. between two worlds

The title of the series, “The Deal”, seems to resonate with the commercial rhetoric of American president Donald Trump. Jean-Stéphane Bron has fun: “For Trump, a deal, is to impose by force. We, we tell a deal based on listening, diplomacy, subtlety.”

The series thus becomes a testimony of a bygone era. “Between 2013 and 2015, we are just before tilting,” observes the director. “Before Brexit, before Trump, before returning from the law of the strongest.”

A documentaryist’s look

Jean-Stéphane Bron is not at his first foray behind the scenes of power. From “Swiss genius” (2003) to “Blocher experience”, he filmed political speech with patience. switzerland will represented “heldin” oscars “I spent thousands of hours in negotiation rooms, observing bodies in action, tense exchanges, silences.”

This experience nourishes its staging: “I knew how the bodies move, how speech is embodied in space. Bringing an official car in a fiction. it was almost natural for me, because I had already seen it arrive a thousand times in reality.”

The first two episodes will be broadcast on Piazza Grande on Monday, August 11. The following four episodes. lasting 46 minutes each, will be discovered the next day at the Sala, in the “Fuori Concorso” section worldwide. “The Deal” will be available on August 13 on Play RTS, then broadcast every Thursday evening on August 28 on RTS 1.

This article was published automatically. Source: ATS