Claire Denis previously mentioned in March 2022 that she believed “Both Sides of the Blade” would be her final film amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I thought maybe ‘The Stars at Noon’ would never exist, so maybe this is my last film. I don’t know, it was a weird thing.”
Then she completed “Stars at Noon” and, wouldn’t you know it, she ended up releasing two films in 2022, both winning prizes at Berlin and Cannes. Would these be the the final films for the 77-year-old auteur? Apparently not.
Last year, in a chat with The Guardian, Denis revealed she just finished writing a new feature and that she was going to start location scouting it that month in Cameroon. There’s been no update about it since then, that is, until today.
Speaking to Screen Daily in Qatar, Denis says the film is titled '“The Fence”, and noted it centers on “four main characters, three men and a woman,” three of whom have been cast. However, she doesn’t seem satisfied enough with the script, and rewrites might be in order:
“The script, I know it’s solidly built; there is something I could trust easily. But I realized since December, I have described them, I know the way they look, I could even describe their clothes. But there is something missing, I don’t know them enough, I realize they are still characters.”
Denis went on to add that the film would be about “a construction site directed and held by white Occidental [Western] people, and the workers are African.” We should note that the French auteur grew up in Cameroon, she even shot her 1988 debut “Chocolat” and 2009’s “White Material” there. The country hits close to him and I’m left to wonder if it’ll be as autobiographical as those previous films.
Denis is, arguably, France's most globally-acclaimed active director and she still only has this one César nomination to her name. That means no Directing nods for “35 Shots of Rum,” “Beau Travail,” “The Intruder,” and “White Material.” Go figure.
French critics haven’t been as enthusiastic about Denis over the years. It’s been more than 20 years since one of her films reached that elusive 4.0 score on AlloCine (that would be 2002’s “Vendredi Soir”). However, Stateside, she’s an absolute legend with the arthouse crowds in New York and Los Angeles.
I spoke to Denis in 2019. It was a wonderful interview, one of my most memorable, and she couldn’t have been more open about her creative process.