Noémie Merlant: "Female cinema must be universal"

Noémie Merlant is nearly thirty-six, with a César Award for Best Supporting Actress in Louis Garrel's L’innocente and two films to her name as a director. She began her career as a model, quickly pivoting to acting with studies at the Cours Florent, and eventually found herself behind the camera with her directorial debut in 2021, Mi iubita, mon amour, followed by the comic and surreal The Balconettes in 2024. The film premiered out of competition at the 77th Cannes Film Festival and made a stop in Italy at the 19th Rome Film Fest.

Noémie Merlant, Accidental (or Almost) Director

"I realized very early that I wanted to make films, and then a tragedy struck: my father had an accident, and I found myself at the hospital with him," recalls Merlant, whose screen debut was in 2011 with Delphine Gleize’s La permission de minuit. "That’s when I began to observe things from a different perspective. Perhaps this shift helped me overcome that time, to filter through some very tough experiences, to start thinking in images and reflecting them back to others." Yet, time passed before she took up directing. "I was twenty, life went on. I told myself: who knows, one day I might get the chance to direct. In the meantime, I focused on acting because I knew it had to happen one step at a time." 

Between Tár and Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Her achievements are notable: she was nominated for a César (the French Oscars) as a promising young actress for Le ciel attendra in 2017 (though Oulaya Amamra won for Divines) and made her way to the U.S. as the assistant to the iconic and ruthless conductor in the acclaimed Tár, acting alongside Cate Blanchett. However, it was Céline Sciamma who brought her to international attention, directing her in the 2019 love story Portrait of a Lady on Fire with Adèle Haenel—a film whose cultural resonance and importance for the LGBTQIA+ community (and beyond) continue to grow over the years. 

The Writing Process for Her Latest Work, The Balconettes

“At first, I started writing The Balconettes on my own, then I shared my drafts with Céline. We’ve remained close friends since Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and one day, I dared to ask for her help,” says Noémie, delving into the process of writing her second feature film, co-written with Sciamma. “She asked to read what I had, and even though it wasn’t exactly her style, she was excited to be part of the project. She has a passion for genre films, and I was over the moon when she agreed to come on board. To me, she’s one of the greatest living filmmakers, if not the greatest. We realized we could work together because she understood exactly what I had in mind. She knows my inclinations and my language. She put herself at the service of my vision, contributing some absolutely brilliant ideas.” 

What is The Balconettes About?

The story of The Balconettes centers on three friends and roommates who, after a night gone wrong, must confront a sudden death and a dark secret—all due to a handsome neighbor they observe from the balcony of their Marseille home. The trio, played by Souheila Yacoub, Sanda Codreanu, and Merlant herself, also features Lucas Bravo from Emily in Paris. But don’t call The Balconettes a feminist film. “It’s just cinema,” Merlant explains. “Since the beginning of time, when films were almost exclusively about men by men, we never called them ‘masculinist’ films. They’re just films, and we may or may not find something meaningful in them. As women, we’ve watched films made by men about men and have been moved by them. It happens when a work is universal. Some films can do that, and some can’t.” 

Everyday Lives of Women

Merlant’s film revolves around a strong female-centric daily life, with touches of the unknown. “Some films depict female lives and worlds. This is inevitable because they draw from our experiences, from our relationship with our bodies, from sexist and sexual violence—things we face every day,” she continues. “If we asked how many women have experienced at least one assault in their lifetime, the number would be staggering. Naturally, this is part of the narrative fabric, a mirror of the patriarchal society we reflect on constantly. I believe this is why a title like The Balconettes is treated as a feminist work, though the intention is to make it broader, more expansive for the audience. It’s also a film about friendship. The problem is that we tend to think of the feminine as something specific and the masculine as something universal. This is just as dangerous in our feminist fight because femininity also needs to become universal.”

Women’s Genre Cinema in France

If the feminine must become universal, it should also reflect a genre perspective that for so long was dominated by male directors. This trend, however, is shifting in France, starting with Julia Ducournau’s adolescent horror in her debut film Raw (2016), culminating with the metallic Palme d’Or winner Titane (2021), and most recently, in 2024, when fellow French director Coralie Fargeat triumphed with the body horror film The Substance, starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley, following her equally brutal 2017 debut, Revenge. “Genre is closer to our lives than it may seem,” comments Merlant, who adds a touch of genre to The Balconettes. “In a single day, we can go from something utterly absurd to something hilarious, or even to something horrible and frightening. This reflects what resonates most with me, both in work and life. In film, I love to be surprised. I love finding fear, poetry, and feeling a visceral connection that makes me laugh or dream. It’s like a rollercoaster. I wanted my film to feel exactly like that.”