Alexis Patri 2:00 p.m., March 12, 2022

At the microphone of Isabelle Morizet in the show "There is not just one life in life" on Saturday, director Lisa Azuelos looks back on her personal and professional journey.

And in particular on his atypical relationship with his mother, the singer Marie Laforêt, who partly inspired his film "I love America".

INTERVIEW

In her new film, 

I love America

, director Lisa Azuelos draws inspiration from her own life to tell the story of the fifty-something who leaves to reinvent himself in the United States.

But she is also inspired by her relationship with her mother, the singer Marie Laforêt.

An atypical relationship that she explains on Saturday at the microphone of Isabelle Morizet, on the occasion of her invitation to the show 

There is not just one life in life

>> Find Isabelle Morizet's shows every weekend from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. on Europe 1 as well as in podcast and replay here

Placed at a very young age in a pension in Sarthe, Lisa Azuelos explains that she grew up without her mother, alone.

A childhood which, once in adulthood, the director was able to talk about with her mother before her death in 2019. "I spoke a lot with her and we often did not agree", explains Lisa Azuelos on Europe 1. "It didn't matter. What was nice, precisely, was being able to discuss everything. Because, really, my mother was not a real mother. But she was a person that I adored and who adored me too. I owe her a lot. She adored me, not as her child, but as a person. And that gives me a lot of strength."

"1968 hadn't been there yet"

"There are a lot of mothers who kill their children with too much love. I was not killed at that level. Maybe with not enough maternal love", she confides with a modest laugh.

"But I had a sincere love. Which is to say, she loved who I was and she always encouraged me as an artist. I think that's the biggest strength she gave me. gave."

The opening scene of her film 

I love America

tells of this distant mother.

A child offers a flower to her mother, who replies that you don't tear flowers.

And leaves without looking back.

"I don't think I could have invented such a scene. To be completely honest, it was with my brother. It was my brother who welcomed the flower", confesses Lisa Azuelos.

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"I was a spectator of what happened and I was seized with dread. Because it is true that afterwards you feel guilty as a child", she adds.

"We tell ourselves that if we hadn't picked the flower, our mother would have taken us with her. At the time, we didn't talk to children as much, we didn't explain things to them."

It is however without bitterness that the director tells this atypical relationship to her mother.

"I think it was another time. It was more difficult for women to come to the sets with their babies, their children. Today, it happens, we take children everywhere. Me, I was born in the 1960s. 1968 had not yet passed by there”, she analyzes.

"Then, for her, it was complicated to mix the two. And then, I was not the only child to be placed in boarding school. It was done a lot at the time."

Transform your experience so that it speaks to everyone

If Lisa Azuelos is often inspired by her life to create films, it is, according to her, because she has "no imagination".

"I can only transform my reality into an imaginary universe to offer it to others. Not because I want them to feel sorry for me or because I want to talk about myself," she warns.

"But because a shared truth really becomes a strength for everyone."

"Above all, I only talk about what I have already managed to transform," she adds.

"I don't empty my trash cans at people's houses. I take care of my trash cans at home. And then I try to turn them into an interesting aroma, and then I share my experience. Because I believe that's the human connection."