“My movie is kinda fantasy, a erotic dream, it’s also about sadness, regrets and love.” – Exclusive interview with Baronne Deneuve photographer, film maker.
Could we start with some background information about you? Where you grow up, where you based, how did you get interested in photography/filming?
I grew up in Vietnam till 9yo then all the family went to France and I live in Paris now. I studied cinema and photography became a natural way. I started photography (especially nude pictures 10 years ago) and did my first short movie (Because you’re mine) last year.
What inspires you?
Nature and men inspired me a lot and also cinema that brings me so many possibilities to do great pictures, I’m always inspired by cinema when I photograph, each picture must be very cinematic.
Who is the last model who inspirated you and why?
Samuel de Sagas. I met him 6 or 7 years ago and we had a great connection. He’s an great artist (painter and also photographer) and I like to work with artists and combine our universes.
For being such strong and intimate images/movies, how is the relationship with your models/actors built?
I like to let some liberty to my models, I don’t like them to pose, I like a strong connection with nature. I prefer to work with models who can be naked easily, it’s better to work with so they can focus or other things I expect them to be in my pictures.
How would you introduce your kind of movies to someone who never seen any by you? What should the expect?
My movie is kinda fantasy, a erotic dream, it’s also about sadness, regrets and love.
There is a lot of stigmas about porn, what your friends said when they let know you doing erotic movies?
They all accepted because they know my work. I don’t want to do porn and if there are some explicit scenes in my movie, I did it with a big artistic way. A penis can be beautifully filmed it just depends of the angle and the way you film. Some of my models accept to be naked, others not but I always respect their choices. They’re not really actors so I can imagine it could be hard to be filmed naked in a sex group.
What are your thoughts on the current state of mainstream gay porn?
I think it’s gonna change in the future. Porn industry is not the same now with all the social media and they have to attract more audience and may be a new audience, so the movies have to be more attractive and not only porn, there’re ll be more stories and more films with explicit gay sex scenes, that’s my point of view.
Can you talk a bit about your recent film, Because You’re Mine – À l’orée?
I met my producer who liked my work and he accepted to produce my first short film. I wanted a great and beautiful image so It costs a little bit to have a nice camera (the one I use is an ARRI Alexa) and we shoot it 4 days. The difficulty is to have a perfect weather and we were lucky to have 3 sunny days in 4. It was my first so I didn’t know to manage the timing so we were a little bit late in filming and I had to delete some scenes I wanted to be included in the movie.
The second difficulty is to find the voice, I wanted famous actors for the audience to recognize and I’m very proud that Stephane Rideau has accepted.
Finally the movie is done and I’m very happy. The movie goes to the Frameline in San Francisco which is the biggest LGBTQ+ Film Festival of the World.
What do you do when you got time for yourself?
I go a lot to cinema, concerts and being with my best friends and also travelling in Europe.
What is your goal for 2019?
To have an award for my movie 😉
Find more: @baronnedeneuve / @becauseyouremineshortfilm
