The director of Du vent dans mes mollets traveled to the Mumbai Film Festival, which took place from November 18 through 25, 2012.
Thanks to uniFrance Films and the Mumbai Film Festival, here I am home again after only four days in Mumbai, feeling as though I've been on an immense journey. I literally fell in love with the city, its muggy heat, run-down colonial architecture alongside teemings slums and temples. incessant noise of honking car horns (something that drives me crazy in Paris), smells - both the bad and the good - and flavours, and most of all, its inhabitants, their generous and sincere smiles, sense of humor, beauty, their beautiful children, and their dignity... Too overwhelmed by these discoveries, which were more moving with every day, too curious about "real life," I must admit that, despite the festival's incredible program, I didn't step inside a single theater, except to present my own film. And here again, the Indian people surprised and moved me... Some of them told me that Du vent dans mes mollets affected them like Annapurna! They're not used to seeing features whose narrative is essentially related from children's point of view, aside from a few films that I've been told are very naive, or tales. I was hence afraid that audiences might be shocked by the rather crude language of my film's heroines, but I needn't have been, for people laughed - a lot. The cross-generational neuroses of my characters evoked reincarnation for audiences, and some of them cried... In short, in this theater full of movement (spectators enter and leave, telephone, comment on scenes; there is life at the movies, just as much as in the street!), the Indian audience seemed to have claimed my film for themselves, with curiosity, kindness and enthusiasm. It was a pure joy. This journey was pure joy. And I keep telling myself how lucky I am... and that I must return to India, because I discovered everything there.
