Mia Hansen-Løve is a French filmmaker whose films have drawn attention for their engagement with the history of French cinema, their bifurcated structures, and the recurring theme of fathers and daughters.
Her debut film, Tout est pardonné (2007), depicts the collapse of a marriage before focusing on the couple’s daughter and her attempt to meet her long absent father. The Father of My Children (2009) returns to these themes, showing a father who succumbs to financial difficulties and his daughter’s pursuit of his past. However, the father figure is a structuring absence in Goodbye First Love (2011), where the protagonist must reconcile a significant young relationship as she matures into an adult.
Mia was in Toronto in the summer of 2012 to present a retrospective of her work at TIFF Lightbox, where we met her to talk about the structure of her films, the importance of place, the influence of French culture, editing strategies and revealing the seams.
This feature interview was released in September 2012.
