Interview with "A Second Life" Director, Laurent Slama at Tribeca 2025.

One of my absolute favorite films at this year's Tribeca Film Festival has been the French movie, A Second Life, competing in the international feature category. Not only was I lucky enough to see the film this week, but also to have an extremely insightful talk with the film's director and cinematographer, Laurent Slama.

Credit: Brigitte Bouillot

Rua: "Today we are lucky to be here with Laurent Slama! To start would you mind introducing yourself?"

Slama: "Yeah, I'm the director of A Second Life at Tribeca. I’ve done two previous films which I signed using a pseudonym. I’m a self-taught filmmaker."

Rua: "I’m curious as to where the idea for A Second Life came from because it’s a very specific film. Is it at all autobiographical? Do you see a little bit of yourself in the main character, Elizabeth?"

Slama: "Yeah, I think so. Because the name of the character is the name I used as my pseudonym for my first film. With this new film, I decided to quit my pseudonym. Yeah, I think it is in terms of the subject because it tackles depression and mental health. I needed to do something personal and to explore those topics. The idea came from working on a hard of hearing character. I wrote three different scripts during residency, but I wasn’t happy at all, and put the project to the side, but at one point I met Agathe Rousselle, the main character of the film, and it was like 8 months before the Paris Olympics. And it struck me that I needed to do a film with her. So I took the script back, and wrote a completely new version for this one, and tried to put everything I wanted into it. I was struggling in the development of another script, so it was a very fast process developing, screenwriting, and shooting this film. 

Rua: "I mean it's incredible that you were able to attach Agathe Rouselle to this project, coming off her Palme D’Or win. So I guess my question is, what made you certain that she was the right person to play Elizabeth?"

Slama: "Oh, we just went for a coffee, and we spoke for like two hours, and I just felt it. You know, I’m not very familiar with doing casting. I prefer to just meet people and watch what they’ve done before, and based on that, I can feel if the person is right for the role or not. And if not, sometimes I adapt the role for the person. And for Agathe, I don’t know, it was something. Of course, I appreciate her performance in Titane, which from that I learned she can be a very physical performer. I was in search of someone who can be physical, because sound is something very important to the movie, and the way she really needed to play it. So I think it was the evidence that she could do that, and she wanted to also try to work more in English language film. She had done an Australian film before, which was perfect."

Rua: "I’m also curious about your intentions with making her character this very international person. Because in the film she says she’s American, but we learn that she’s kind of from everywhere and moved around a lot. Is that something you can relate to?"

Slama: "I think I was interested in a character that doesn’t have a real home. She has nothing, she doesn’t have roots. She’s very contemporary that way. She’s global, but she still suffers from that, and from not having roots, in a sense. She has no sense of reality, because she’s been experiencing it as a kind of floating person, which was very important for me to do."

Rua: "It really adds to her isolation. She feels so detached from everyone else, which is something that I can definitely relate to. Just kind of growing up between two cultures, not knowing who’s going to have my sense of humor, that kind of thing. So I thought that was really subtle, but a unique way to characterize her as being a global citizen and how that can actually feel isolating. If I’m correct, there is a very intentional use of color in this film, right?

Slama: "Yes."

Rua: "Like how Elizabeth is always wearing black, and Elijah, Alex Lawther’s character, is head to toe in pink. Can you explain your process behind that?"

Slama: "I think it works a lot in contrast, because she is a very depressing character, and it’s important to tackle the subject of depression. But I think it would be hard to just feel that in the character for an hour and twenty minutes. So I needed to contrast her with Elijah with his vibes, and also in terms of color. Because the idea of the pink hair was totally Alex's idea. I went to London to meet him, and play around, and make a reel with him and Agathe, and when he opened the door, he had just colored his hair. I didn’t know, and he was like 'do you like it?' and I said 'yeah, it’s perfect!' But it helped a lot in terms of color because underneath all of the visuals of the film, the character is in a bubble. She is surrounded by nice sounds, but mostly, she’s surrounded by distance. There is a distance between her and the world. My intention was to have the colors emphasize that." 

Rua: "I interpreted the color as representing the two sides of depression that you can experience. I know that what was so emotional for me, was that I used to be Elizabeth, but now I’m Elijah. Where she very much wears it on her sleeve. She’s very European as opposed to him. She’s a very private person. He, however, is incredibly outgoing, but you learn over time that this phony extroversion is just a facade  So, thank you for that because I feel like the only depression that gets media representation is the kind Elizabeth is going through."

Slama: "Yeah, that’s funny because I showed the film in Paris for the team, and one of my closest friends said 'The film is you, because those are your two sides.' And so I think you’re right, depression is not just looking down at the ground every day."

Rua: "I was also interested in the Claude Monet motif. Can you expand on that? Because it seems like every time she has an episode: just seeing a glimpse of Monet grounds her."

Slama: "I think that’s personal too, because I had some dark times as a teenager but what’s helped me a lot, was film, and art in general. I felt like I needed to help the character. I need to bring her something that can comfort her, and I don’t know why it was Monet. I think I chose Monet and the Waterlilies, which is iconic, because it’s very mysterious. The painting is huge, and unique, there's a lot of story behind the painting. I love the color and the abstraction, because it’s a complete abstraction, but it still represents something. You can describe it as life because it’s the flower, the water, and the sky. I think it’s grounded in the character, whatever way you look at it. 

Rua: "And is there almost a connection between Elizabeth and Monet because there’s always that theory that Monet was such an impressionistic artist because he was losing his vision. In the same way that she is losing her hearing. Was that intentional with her connection between her and Monet?"

Slama: "Yeah, of course it’s intentional. I’ve read a lot about that. It’s helped me to say that it’s true, but we don’t really know if it was really true, because we don’t know a lot about him. But when I read that Monet was losing his vision, I saw it as a gift of because she can connect with that."

Rua: "I’m curious as to what your favorite movie is, as a filmmaker?"

Slama: "I think it changes basically every three to six months. I don’t rewatch film a lot. When I really like a film, I can watch it like twice, but normally I just prefer a taste of something. I’ve been very moved by Terrence Malick’s cinema, and also by Agnès Varda, she is one of my favorites. I’ve named my production company 21juin Cinema, which means June 21st, and that’s the day that Cléo From 5 to 7 takes place in. I really like Linklater too. He was a very strong influence at one point, but it changes very often."

Rua: "I just met him at Cannes, he was lovely. I can't wait to see his newest film. Now, the last words of A Second Life are a very understated 'it's all good'...why is that?"

Slama: "At some point, I think you need to save your character. As a screenwriter or director, even if you tackle this kind of subject, in a film like ours that isn’t necessarily ambitious, we need to save her. She’ll go through it all, but it then will be okay. That was the intention, I hope it brings some hope."

Rua: "Well thank you so much for joining us today, Laurent. Please, please promise to keep making films!"

Slama: "I will, thank you for having me."

We'd like to thank Mr. Slama once again for appearing on our publication this week during the Tribeca Film Festival. All of his work can be found on his personal website, make sure to catch A Second Life when it gets American distribution! Thank you for tuning into Cinemasters.net and remember to never stop watching!