Avec Lui, Director Marine Billet’s New Short Film Decodes Our Lonely, Hidden Desires

Having studied photography in Paris at the school les Gobelins, Billet has now worked across photographic mediums; in fashion, beauty, food, editorial, and advertising. Yet her interest moved quickly into moving footage, and in 2019, she released her first short film ‘What is Beauty?’, a sensorial portrayal of a woman’s personal quest to find the meaning of beauty in our modern, changing times. Billet met de Saint Louvent during her beginning days as a photographer, who worked as an assistant director on their first collaboration for the French skincare brand Typology. Since then, the pair has been working on commercial and personal projects together, including documentary work and still life editorials, and the newly released ‘Avec Lui’.

The film presents a vivid exploration of the internal workings of a lonely, overwhelmed protagonist. Peeking at two neighbors through the window in a nearby apartment, the man is haunted by images of their entanglement. There is much visual emphasis on human touch and the metaphor of cracking objects, and as the film progresses, it builds tension while raising a host of questions: Is the man love sick, and ruminating over an extramarital affair? Or is he in a long-term relationship, emotionally distant, and beyond the ability to connect? Rife with tension, ‘Avec Lui’ is an empathetic view of humanity’s conflicted basic instincts. In the words that follow, we speak with the pair about the fractured and intriguing film.