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David Schurmann, director, and Jean Reno, star, of My Penguin Friend






Roadside Attractions releases My Penguin Friend in nationwide on August 16th, 2024.


NYC MOVIE GURU: How did you find the right balance between entertaining older and younger audiences?

David Schurmann: As an artist, I go to a source where I feel the kind of movies that I'd like to watch and also the story that I think should be told. I normally don't think, "This is for this person or this is for that person."; it actually comes from within. I try to express my art in a way that, "I hope that maybe if I was like this, maybe I would've liked to watch it." As an artist, I go to the truth of the story. I look at, "What are we trying to tell here? What connections are we trying to make? How are we going to tell this visually, especially with penguins?" Obviously, we had the incredible Jean Reno [as João], but how do you put him and a penguin together? A penguin does not have a lot of reactions, so it's a lot on Jean]. The penguin is very cute and wonderful, but the biggest thing that I was looking at, "How, as an artist, can I express the story in a way that will engage people and get them to feel what João, the real character, felt? And what was their relationship like?" I think that the relationship, for me, was very, very important. I hope that, in the movie, we're able to feel that relationship and how the penguin rescues João from his loneliness and his depression that he's been in for so long. I don't really look at whether I'm doing this for younger or older audiences; I'm doing this for myself as an artist and for people to connect to this true story.

NYC MOVIE GURU: Jean, do you think that João sees himself as a hero?

Jean Reno: No, not as a hero. If I accept the word "hero," everybody's a hero in my mind because everybody fights against his or her own loneliness and drama in his or her own life. One way to look at the story is to see how João, the fisherman, took warm sentiments coming from the penguin to warm his life. Their relationship helped him. It's a gift from somewhere, I dunno, maybe God or from the planet. The reason we're doing this movie is, "Please, protect the planet. Don't kill species. Protect the sea and take care of our common planet because we have only one planet to live on." The hero is the story of João and the penguin together.

NYC MOVIE GURU: Pablo Neruda wrote the poem, "They can cut all of the flowers, but they can't stop the spring from coming." Do you think that João truly understands the wisdom behind that poem and does he forgive himself for his son's death?

DS: For me, João comes from a place of true feeling. When he sees that penguin going through the perils that he was going through and trying to save him, it comes from a very, very simple and a very human aspect of our humanity. Through My Penguin Friend, we learn how to be more human. The penguin teaches us about humanity. I think that, sometimes, we forget and get lost as human beings on the humanity that we need to have and the empathy towards other humans and animals. I don't think that João was thinking of anything else but,"I have to save this life that is in need." And then this relationship grows. I feel that that's where it comes from.

JR: The other day, my son said to me, "I don't want to be interesting. I want to do something interesting." Yes, together with the penguin, João has done something interesting and became interesting for everybody.

NYC MOVIE GURU: If the penguin could talk, what would his conversation with João be like?

JR: The first thing that he would say is, "How are you doing?". The second thing he would say is, "At what time are we eating?" [laughs]

DS: "Sardines! Send me more sardines!" That's what he would say. [laughs] I actually thought about that for a long, long time, "If the penguin could speak, how would their relationship be?" I tried to convey that, as the director of the movie, through the visuals---where I place the cameras together with the DP, Anthony Dod Mantle. One of the challenges is, if you look at a penguin, they look very cute, but they express themselves in their body, not in their faces. For Jean, all of his expressions are very natural and so potent. So, how do you put those two together to have an idea that he's speaking. We have sometimes, in different moments, where [the penguin] looks like he's speaking. But I must give credit because I think that our penguin does speak---maybe visually, maybe with the squawks. I think that there's a dialogue between them many times, especially when João asks, "Are you hungry?" and the penguin answers. I have to say that there's a lot of great work from our sound editor who gave us a little bit of a voice for the penguin because that was a big challenge. Penguins don't make a lot of sounds, so how do we get a dialogue going?

NYC MOVIE GURU: In the editing room, how did you find the right balance between entertaining the audience and provoking them emotionally?

DS: It's always about being true to the story. I don't try to find a calculated balance. I let the story tell itself. I go a lot with my heart and feelings and what I feel like the story is and what the connections are. If I was the audience, how would I perceive it? And as an artist, what am I expressing? I come from that place a lot when I'm in the editing room. I had an amazing editor, Teresa Font. I got drawn into the emotions and different things, and she helped to guide me with, "Where are we going with this?" and, "Who are we telling the story to?" For me, the source is always the feeling of the story and what is the heart of the story. I have to always listen to that. I think that that's where the balance comes naturally into place. You find this beautiful orchestra of entertainment, heart and art all coming together because you listen to your heart as an artist and you're being true to it.

JR: I can never control the reactions of the audience, so the idea is to follow your instinct, your heart and intelligence, and to create the character with the most honesty that you can. And then give the movie to the audience because, now, the movie belongs to them. I don't like the idea of controlling. I just wrote a book that has a lot of success in France last month. I wrote the book because I wanted to tell the story and then the book goes where it wants to go. For the movie, it's the same. Do it as honestly as you can, and, now, it belongs to the audience.

NYC MOVIE GURU: Which film do you think would be a great double feature with My Penguin Friend?

DS: There's one movie that it does remind me of: E.T.. An alien comes to a new place, discovers it, befriends a human and the human helps him. I felt that there was a little bit of that in My Penguin Friend because it's about a penguin coming in, he befriends another human, and the human helps him. So, I think if you maybe watch both films, you get a little bit of that feeling.

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