Maxime Roy

The cinema to survive

Maxime Roy is a director, writer and actor. He directed in 2018 his first short movie called Beautiful Loser, with François and Roméo Créton, Romane Bohringer and Youssef Hajdi. The short was awarded at Clermont-Ferrand, Angers' Premiers Plans, Aubagne, FIFF Namur... and nominated at the Cesar 2020. He directed the same year the short movie Sole Mio, with Gall Gaspard and Marie Desgranges.
Then, he shot his first feature film The Heroics – the extension of Beautfiul Loser – in which he directed again François Créton. The film was presented in competition at the FIFF Namur and in official selection of Cannes in 2021 and distributed by Pyramide Distribution. Decent People is his third short movie. Like his two first short movies, it was broadcasted by Arte, and selected to many festivals in France and worldwide. Maxime Roy was also nominated as best young actor at the Jean Carmet Film Festival in 2022.

Maxime, you co-wrote the script along with Clara Ponsot and you both perform Ludo and Manon, respectively. How does a co-writing process work? Were you both meant to be the leading actors from the very beginning?

I wanted to write this script to shoot my lover’s fight towards the administration when she was pregnant. Then, we wrote a fiction in which we questioned the different points of views. From the man and the woman facing the upcoming arrival of the baby, in a more and more tenuous labor market. It was obvious to have Clara playing in the film. She shot Decent People two weeks before our childbirth. For Ludo, to be with her was a way to accompany and understand her better.

Was visiting Manon's grandfather a turning point in Ludo's attitude towards Manon and the baby in a family-like way he had not experienced before?

Ludo is quite lonely and without real family so the death of Manon’s grandfather shakens him. He understands that by loosing himself in his job, he misses his real life.

I cannot help asking how did you get to know Anna Galiena? Are the Italian signs in the film intentionally placed to honour her home country? (Manon having worked in Italy for two months, her t-shirt, her few italian words)

Clara has italian’s origins and regularly shoots there. We often go to Italy and it was natural for us to think of a character with these roots.

We would love to hear about your filmmaking background. Or is this your first time filmmaking?

A few years ago, an encounter changed my life. It was François Créton who inspired my first short movie, Beautiful Loser and then The Heroics. Decent People was shot in the same emergency and the same year. We wrote and shot it in a very short time, depending of the pregnancy.