In Chalon-sur-Saône, Paul Guilhaume, nominated for the 2025 Oscars for his cinematography on Emilia Pérez, and director and screenwriter Léa Mysius share their common path, from La Fémis to their collaborations on Ava, Paradis and Les Cinq Diables. They discuss their collaborative approach, where cinematography and directing converge to create a unique visual narrative.

Paul Guilhaume’s journey

Moderator (N. T. Binh): Paul, what led you to become a cinematographer?

Paul Guilhaume: I didn’t grow up in a film family, but my mother is a photographer. There was someone in our circle who worked in cinema, a production manager. At the time, many people wanted to become directors – myself included – because I thought it was the only possible path.

She wanted to show me how complicated it was. She described all the stages of a filmmaker’s journey, listing every step in the production of a film: you meet a producer, a screenwriter… And when she got to the meeting with the cinematographer, she said: “You go to a museum, look at paintings and think: this could be the look of the film.”
That’s when it clicked: I want to be that person.

Moderator: And that’s when you started moving toward that path?

Paul Guilhaume: Yes, I was 14 and I knew I wanted to make images for cinema.

Choosing La Fémis

Moderator: How did you get into La Fémis?

Paul Guilhaume: I trained in photography first, then applied to the cinematography department at La Fémis. There was a preparatory class at the time, and we formed a small group who studied together.

Moderator: And Léa, how did you two start working together?

Léa Mysius: We met at La Fémis, but not during the entrance exam as people often think. We met during school exercises. It was a natural match – we connected through the work itself.

Moderator: Did you share the same visual references?

Paul Guilhaume: Not necessarily. What brought us together was more about an energy, a way of being on set. The school exercises were our testing ground – we discovered we worked well together, and that’s how Ava came about.

Screening of an excerpt from L’Île Jaune

Moderator: Paul, Léa, how does it feel to see these images again?

Paul Guilhaume: It’s been a long time! We shot on 16mm, at a time when that format had been virtually abandoned. The first rental house I called actually scolded me, saying digital was far better. Eventually, we found a company that had developed a system for shooting CinemaScope on 16mm, which allowed us to use the entire film surface with lenses reminiscent of 1970s Hollywood.

Léa Mysius: For the script, we drew inspiration from a place Paul knew well. He had drawn me a treasure map with all the locations that had marked his childhood. I simply traced an itinerary through these places, and the film was built around that.

Moderator: Paul, looking at these images again, are there visual choices you would make differently today?

Paul Guilhaume: Yes, for instance, you often avoid lighting a face head-on, because the image tends to flatten out – it becomes harder to create depth. But in the swimming pool scene, where the character is floating, Léa wanted to film her from above. I remember not being fully satisfied with the lighting, but Léa felt the emotion was there. Sometimes you have to let go and follow the director’s instinct.

Léa Mysius: In cinema, many rules become conventions. Knowing when to break them is part of the creative process.

Working with young actors

Moderator: On L’Île Jaune, you worked with very young actors. How did that affect the visual approach?

Paul Guilhaume: Working with children requires constant adaptation. You can’t rehearse scenes the same way, and their energy is unpredictable. The camera has to be ready to capture spontaneous moments. We worked with lighter equipment to be more reactive.

Léa Mysius: What I love about working with children is that they don’t perform – they exist. When the magic happens, it’s real. But you have to be ready, because those moments are fleeting.

Shooting on film: constraints and lessons

Moderator: When you shoot on film, you have to wait for the lab processing and sometimes a report before knowing exactly what you’ve got.

Léa Mysius: Yes, and besides, you never actually see the final image on set.

Paul Guilhaume: We do have a combo – a small monitor that relays the image from the camera – but it’s only an approximation. It’s nothing like the final image.

Moderator: Is it not very faithful?

Paul Guilhaume: No, because the combo uses a small built-in camera that captures a simplified version of the image, which doesn’t really reflect the final exposure or colour rendering.

Léa Mysius: I direct a lot from the combo – I watch the images on screen rather than looking directly at the actors on set. It lets me adjust framing and performance. On Ava, we couldn’t yet record takes on the combo, but on Les Cinq Diables, my second film shot on 35mm, we could review certain takes. It helps, especially for checking nuances in the actors’ performances.

The lesson of Ava

Paul Guilhaume: What Ava taught me is that you have to know when to let go. Sometimes the light isn’t perfect, the framing isn’t exactly what you planned, but the emotion is there. And in cinema, emotion always wins over technical perfection.

Léa Mysius: That’s also why our partnership works – Paul knows when to push for something better and when to accept a beautiful accident.

Les Olympiades, collaboration with Jacques Audiard

Moderator: Let’s now talk about Les Olympiades, a film by Jacques Audiard. Léa, you are credited as co-screenwriter. How did you meet Audiard?

Léa Mysius: It came through Ava. He had seen the film and then contacted Paul to shoot episodes of Le Bureau des Légendes. They did two episodes together, then Jacques asked Paul to work on Les Olympiades.

Paul Guilhaume: During the shoot of Le Bureau des Légendes, Jacques asked me: “Would Léa be interested if I were to propose something to her?” I replied: “I’ll give you her number right away!”

Moderator: And how was the screenwriting collaboration?

Léa Mysius: Very well. There was already a version of the script, co-written with Céline Sciamma, but Jacques had set it aside. It was very different, more theatrical, and I think he didn’t want to go in that direction. He brought it back out and we reworked it from scratch.

The choice of black and white for Les Olympiades

Moderator: Did you test different looks?

Paul Guilhaume: Yes, we tried different cameras and lenses. Jacques told me: “The black and white must be brilliant.” That brilliance comes from several things: visible light sources in the image, reflective materials, but also a precise, contrasty rendering. We shot with a Sony Venice and Leica Sumilux lenses, which preserve maximum micro-contrast.

Moderator: It’s also a film where screen light – from phones, tablets – plays an important role…

Paul Guilhaume: Yes, Jacques wanted to capture the light of a face lit by an iPad, a phone screen… These are today’s visual elements. The camera we chose was extremely sensitive – it could pick up these faint light sources without needing to artificially boost them.

What’s interesting is that we worked on the black and white in post-production, but shot in colour. This allowed us to control contrast and tonal separation very precisely.

Paradis, a documentary about the wildfires in Siberia

Moderator: Léa, let’s now talk about the documentary Paradis. What is it about?

Léa Mysius: Paradis follows the seasonal wildfires in Siberia that devastate vast areas. These are uncontrollable fires, sometimes even deliberately left to burn because the cost of intervention is deemed too high.

Moderator: How did the shoot go?

Paul Guilhaume: It was an extreme environment. The local firefighters have almost no resources: they use flamethrowers to start backfires and prevent the spread with water tanks carried on their backs.

Moderator: Visually, how did you approach these fire scenes?

Paul Guilhaume: In documentary filmmaking, the question is always about the setup. How do you be there at the right moment, capture the essence of the subject without interfering? We shot with lightweight cameras to get as close to the action as possible. The firelight was our main source, so we had to plan well ahead.

Léa Mysius: It’s a film about climate change and the management of environmental crises.

Paul Guilhaume: And about the power of images. Here, it’s raw reality, without any staging. That’s what makes the documentary so powerful.

Les Cinq Diables: a concept shaped from the writing stage

Moderator: Did you have very strong visual and narrative concepts in mind from the very conception of the film?

Léa Mysius: Yes, and it’s interesting because earlier you mentioned that Paul was co-screenwriter on some films. On Ava, he came on board after a first draft had been written. But on Les Cinq Diables, we really worked together from the very beginning of the story, both in terms of screenplay and visuals.

Paul Guilhaume: That’s where working with Léa is special for me. Often, as a cinematographer, there are scenes in a script where I think: “I don’t know what I’m going to do with this,” or worse, “It’s going to look ugly.” But with Léa, I can say: “What if we didn’t shoot this scene at a table, but walking in the rain?” She doesn’t always say yes, but at least I can suggest it.

Léa Mysius: It really influences the film. For example, at first we had planned to shoot the entire film in real locations. But the apartment sets were too small — we couldn’t fit both the actors and the lighting equipment. So we decided to rebuild them in the studio, slightly enlarged.

Paul Guilhaume: And we used LED panels behind the windows instead of traditional HMI lights.

Léa Mysius: Because if there are too many lights, it gets incredibly hot and the actors have no room to move.

Emilia Pérez: an operatic project and a studio shoot

Moderator: Let’s talk about Emilia Pérez, where you are both involved: Léa on the screenplay and Paul on cinematography. The film is screening tonight, the theatre is full. Léa, when did you come on board?

Léa Mysius: From the very beginning. Jacques (Audiard) had this idea of a drug lord who changes sex to escape his enemies. He had read about it in a book. He called me just as we were about to shoot Les Cinq Diables, but the shoot was halted by lockdown. He said: “Well, if your film has stopped, come and write another one!”

Moderator: At that point, was it still conceived as an opera libretto?

Léa Mysius: Yes, initially. Jacques was torn between a film and a staged opera. We first wrote a detailed treatment without dialogue, then he worked in parallel with Thomas Bidegain and the composers to write the songs. Meanwhile, I was writing the dramatic version. At some point, he decided that everything would be shot in a studio to build a unique visual universe.

Shooting a musical sequence in studio

Moderator: Let’s talk about the market sequence, one of the first musical scenes in the film.

Paul Guilhaume: It’s a scene shot in a studio with a blue screen. The idea was to light everything using the set elements themselves: the market’s fairy lights, bulbs built into the stalls, all remotely controlled. There were no traditional film lights.

Moderator: How did you synchronise the image with the musical staging?

Paul Guilhaume: The sequence was rehearsed with the dancers and choreographer Damien Jalet. We filmed the rehearsals with iPhone stabilisers to test the camera movements before the actual Steadicam shoot. We knew exactly which shots were needed before we even started rolling.

Moderator: And what about the sets?

Paul Guilhaume: The foreground is real, but much of the background was recreated in post-production. The market was rebuilt in 3D to add depth and enrich the visual universe.

Moderator: Paul, did you use visual references during the shoot to maintain continuity?

Paul Guilhaume: Exactly. During the shoot, I would add screenshots of scenes already filmed. This made it possible to check the visual consistency from one sequence to another.

Audience questions

The documentary Paradis

Audience member: On the documentary Paradis, did you give the participants any instructions about not looking at the camera?

Paul Guilhaume: Yes, in the first few days, we asked them not to interact with us, but you also have to be flexible. Sometimes, a look straight into the camera can be very powerful emotionally.

Emilia Pérez

Audience member: What do you think about the political criticism surrounding the film?

Léa Mysius: It’s a complex subject. There is some truth in certain criticisms, but online debates tend to be binary, with no nuance. Emilia Pérez is not a realist film — it’s an opera, so it should also be seen as a stylised object, with deliberate artistic choices.

Audience member: What was the biggest challenge of the shoot?

Paul Guilhaume: Managing the studio. There were seven sets in use simultaneously, and we had to maintain consistency in a film that blends realism, opera and digital effects.

Audience member: How do you work on colour beforehand?

Paul Guilhaume: I grade every day. Even on Paradis, I graded the dailies each day to give the editors and directors a visual intention. It helps avoid getting used to a raw image and keeps a strong artistic direction.

Cover photo: Mathis D’Angelo