The ultimate act of friendship

Robin Campillo and, right, Laurent Cantet at the Cannes Film Festival Photo: Courtesy of Cannes Film Festival

The friendship and creative partnership between filmmakers Robin Campillo and the late Laurent Cantet seems to have been preordained. Because their names began with C they found themselves in the same year group at film school in Paris and immediately hit it off.

Campillo who stepped up to the directorial plate on Cantet’s final film Enzo when his long-time collaborator died of cancer in April 2024, aged 63, reflects fondly on the origins of their partnership. “We became friends very quickly. There was something very magical about it. It was a period when nobody had easy access to cameras. I didn’t have one, even a small one, as a youngster unlike nowadays with mobile phones. When you watch Steven Spielberg’s autobiographical The Fabelmans you realise how privileged he was with a acess to a camera early on. But for us it was rather different. Laurent was working with a still camera. The first time we met was to open a movie camera and to put in the film.

“It was something impressionable – like if you were a young surgeon and you open a body for the first time. At any rate we ended up doing short films together – I did the lights on his film and he would edit mine. The friendship was forged partly because we discovered cinema at the same age. I was 21 and he was 22 although I used to joke that he was a lot older.”

Robin Campillo on Laurent Cantet: 'The friendship was forged partly because we discovered cinema at the same age' Photo: Marie Rouge for UniFrance)

Campillo who turns 65 in August, admits there was much emotional complexity around the production. When Cantet became ill Campillo immediately said he would remain at his side through the production process. “No one imagined that he would die so quickly but then suddenly I found myself dealing with contracts and insurance policies and all the preparations for me taking over. Because it was all set out in advance I was able to continue the film almost seamlessly rather than being consumed by grief.”

During their 40-year friendship Campillo recalls that Cantet suffered various health problems. He had a cancer scare some 25 years previously. “I was always prepared for the possibility that he could get seriously sick again, but it was a little bit too soon,” said Campillo.

“I had these feelings that I had to do it and I must say that the shooting was a real pleasure. I had told him I would do the film in the best way I could but that I could not try to imitate him as a director.

Campillo forged his reputation as co-writer and editor of Cantet’s socially conscious films. He worked on Human Resources, a portrait of labour relations in a French factory, followed by Time Out, a film about a man who desperately hides his unemployment from his family.

Subsequently they wrote The Class, set in a Paris school. The film was praised for its naturalistic dialogue and ensemble playing, winning the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008 and nabbing a nomination for best foreign-language film at the Academy Awards. Campillo scored a 2017 Cannes Grand Prix award for 120 BPM (Beats per Minute) which dealt with the HIV and AIDS crisis and investigated queer identity and then delivered Red Island, a semi-autobiographical account of growing up a French military base in early 1970s Madagascar. He had made his directorial debut with Les Revenants, in which thousands of deceased residents of a small town suddenly return to life. The film was later adapted into a successful television series. His second feature was Eastern Boys about Eastern European migrants and sex trafficking.

Eloy Pohu, left, and Maksym Slivinskyi in Enzo Photo: Curzon

After film school the pair went their separate ways although they stayed “very connected.” Campillo continued: “Laurent had his own friends in the film world and so did I. It wasn’t easy for me at the time of the AIDS epidemic and all the things associated with it. I became involved in AIDS activism and the Act Up movement. I found difficult to get back into cinema and Laurent helped me by asking me to edit some of his films and also to collaborate on scripts. He recalls that Laurent used to quote Martin Luther King who suggested the most important thing in a friendship was the ability to be silent. We talked a lot but, especially regards editing, we often thought exactly the same thing at the same time.” He married Isabelle, a friend of Campillo, from high school.

In a semi-confessional moment Campillo, who spent some time living in London, reveals becoming addicted to British soaps and positively gushes over the likes of Emmerdale, Coronation Street, East Enders and River City. “I thought it would be a way of improving my English, but it didn’t work,” he smiled.

The main casting for Enzo had been put in place before Cantet’s demise. In the film’s production notes Campillo explained: "We both really wanted to work with Élodie Bouchez and so giving her the role of this mother who is a lucid onlooker was immediately obvious to us. For the father, we had already thought of Pierfrancesco Favino, but we were a little hesitant because of the language. Little by little, he became the obvious choice because, beyond the power of his acting, we found it unsettling to have a father who is a little out of place in his own family. As he had so often done, Laurent wanted to use 'non-professional' actors alongside these stars, so as to create a class relationship between the characters. Maksym Slivinskyi had worked on building sites like Vlad. From the very first screen test, we sensed in him a youthful energy, a melancholy and at times a harshness that moved us.

Eloy Pohu … a revelation as Enzo - 'More than just the portrait of a teenager in conflict with his family and society' Photo: Curzon

“As for Eloy Pohu, you could say that he was a revelation, but in fact he was the one who revealed the film to us. Eloy had been a high-level competitive swimmer, and there were a number of things about him that interested us: self-discipline, a sense of brotherhood with his fellow athletes, but also a taste for solitude and silence that we felt was important for the character. In this way, Eloy allowed Enzo to be more than just the portrait of a teenager in conflict with his family and society.”

Campillo, who was born in Mohammedia (Morocco) in 1962, felt less stressed on Enzo than on many of his previous undertakings. “Because the film still belonged to Laurent in my mind, I felt less anxious directing than I normally would. I felt almost like a soldier carrying out a mission for someone else.”

Enzo is on release through Curzon in the UK and Ireland from 5 June. Richard Mowe interviewed Robin Campillo at the UniFrance Rendezvous with French Cinema in Paris earlier this year.