“My lesbianism is largely related to the fact that I was incestuous”: Iris Brey (Split)

Split, what is it?

Anna, a thirty-year-old stuntwoman, falls in love with the actress she is dubbing. The series follows their love story Anna’s journey out of heterosexuality and that of Eve, victim of incest, towards recovery.

Interview with Iris Brey, journalist, critic and director of Split

To miss. Iris Brey, you are a film critic and author of the essay “The female gaze, a revolution on the screen”. After studying the work of others, what inspired you to create your own?

Iris Brey. I wanted to tell stories my stories and I had a good idea what kind of staging I wanted to do, to try.

Have you studied the subject of your series a lot or has the story of Eva and Anna stuck with you?

From the beginning I had a pretty clear idea of ​​the story I wanted to tell. I knew what I wanted to do a miniseries, with a real ending. I wanted to write a story in which the content and form would make senseand that’s how I got the idea split screen.

Split screen is often used as a motif for storytelling two alternating stories or to add suspense. I told myself that this line of separation could also be a line of repair. I started from this formal idea to think about this story of split, reflected image.

After theorizing it, What was your experience creating the female gaze? Was this only represented in the staging?

For me it was important that this was embodied in the staging but also in the make images. I wanted my team to feel watched, that the film crew was involved. Era collective work to bring a vision to fruition. I surrounded myself with feminist technicians who wanted to tell this story. The same way I chose feminist actresses who wanted to defend this project. I think when there will be A symbiosis around the political discourse, we can begin to create images that will resemble the team. I don’t think at all that a work of cinema or series is just a director.

Everyone changes the text that has been written based on their vision, the way they received the words, the way the actors will say them, this will move me too. Even though I sometimes had a very precise vision of what I wanted, you have to constantly adapt. This image becomes even more interesting when we look at it from others.

In most films and series, we find the script of heterosexuality. The couples meet, make love, exchange each other and are represented according to a pattern that is repeated and similar. Was writing a “lesbian romance screenplay” scary? Or is it on the contrary joyful?

The series was a great freedom. It’s kind of the same thing with lesbian love : Since we have so much of it few referenceswe have a great creativity in the way we live our love stories and our sexuality since there is no pre-established script. I find it extremely Happy.

I think it was the same thing when I shot my series: not coming from film school, I had a lot of freedom in how I wanted to build things. I worked with people who knew the script and the camera well. It allowed me to think differently and bring other ways of looking at the set and creating things.

I find that this is something we are not taught at all when we grow up as women: knowing how to say what we want.

Eva and Anna communicate a lot, sometimes even without necessarily speaking to each other. They formulate the political issues of their relationship.

YES. I really wanted to you listen to political speechparticularly in the bar scene where a Splicer explains in a very educational way to Anna what lesbianism is “Exit from heterosexuality ».

It is a theoretical and militant discourse that does not prevent the two heroines from expressing their desire. I find that to be something thatwe are not taught at all when we grow up like women : knowing how to say what you want. I wanted to embark on this journey with my heroines, who can say what they want, to look their desire in the face. And at the same time I wanted it to be there not verbal communication : that they I wait much, that they listen to each other much, that they look at each other’s bodies to understand their mutual state.

For example, we will look at one of the two cry during orgasm. I think These are things we never show.

In my opinion, sex is extremely emotional. (…) It’s complex, there are many things that can only be said during this intimacy..

What are the challenges of sex scenes and how did you direct them?

I worked with intimacy coordinator Paloma Garcia Martens. It was so important to me these sex scenes tell something about the couple, that there is real progress. I wanted it shows a woman who has never actually had sex with another womanwho will do it for the first time cunnilingus. I wanted to show what he said about her, its movement. Many things in their sexuality reveal their status – the state of their romance and their internal state.

For example, we will look at one of the two cry during orgasm. I think These are things we never show. In my opinion, sex is extremely emotional. There are many things we let go of in this intimacy. I wanted it to be there LAUGH. It’s not something smooth, simple. It’s complex, there are many things that can only be said during this intimacy.. For me it was really important that the sexuality spoke to the intimacy of the two characters and not just the desire to fuck.

I wanted it the first scenes are full of this desire to discover someone for the first time.

So, I prefer to show sex when we begin to know each other’s bodies better, how we can also access another intimacy if we really look at each other when we make love.

However, this emotional charge does not detract from the sensuality of the sex scenes..

I wanted the sexual scenes to be sexual erotic and let’s show to what extent this desire can be powerful. I wanted it the first scenes are full of this desire to discover someone for the first time. Then, I wanted to show how, when we begin to get to know each other’s bodies better (I imagine they made love many other times between one episode and another, laugh) how we can also access another intimacy if we really look at each other when we make love.

I would like to return to a specific scene. At a certain point Anna asks Eva if the fact that she is a lesbian and that she came out early is linked to the fact that a man raped her. This question may be shocking at first, but it eventually leads to a healthy discussion between the two women and brings them even closer together.

I wanted Eva to be struck by this question first… “Does your sexual assault make you a lesbian?” » – but then let her think about it and say it to herself “maybe yes, maybe no but what I know for sure is that I’m happy to be a lesbian”.

I’d like to open the conversation. I think thatwe have been told many times that we were born lesbiansthat we have known since childhood… We do not question the construction of sexuality and desire. For me, many factors must be taken into account in sexuality but we must absolutely not deny the fact that there is a social, family context. There’s also all the unspoken family stuff, everything that’s been passed down from generation to generation, and also events this happens to us.

I know that this is a discussion that is not easily understood because there has been so much conversion therapy, the LBGTQIA+ community has suffered so much because of this… But I would like us to reintroduce dialogue into this and be able to say: Yes, being attacked can make us desire women’s bodies.

I think that my lesbianism is largely linked to the fact that I was incestuous. I know it’s taboo to say this, but it’s important. yes, my first relationship with sexuality was a break in of my body from the body of a man in my family. So why wouldn’t I want it go towards women’s bodies and have a sexuality which in my opinion is a lot more restorative ?

Obviously I have a desire for women, it has always been there and it has probably only been conditioned by these attacks, but I find that it is a space that we must be able to collectively question and that is not so taboo. To me there’s something political about saying that lesbianism can be a salutary effect of our attacks.

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