Baptiste, 29, is in a relationship with Samia, when he meets Cookie Kunty, a young drag-queen from the Parisian nightlife. Driven by the idea of a photo project with her, he immerses himself in a universe of which he knows nothing, and discovers Quentin, the young man behind the drag-queen, who dedicates his life to the detriment of his loves to these three nights a week during which he turns into a sumptuous blonde. The young director Florent Gouëlou knows the Parisian drag scene since he performs there himself in Javel Habibi. With Three Nights a Week, he signs a first free and political film that immerses us in the sequins of drag thanks to a surprising and moving romance. Interview.Konbini | Three Nights a Week is a romantic comedy. What are the codes of the genre that you have adopted and those that you have chosen to hijack?See also on KonbiniFlorent Gouëlou | The script of the romantic comedy guided the writing of the film as a reference. So I chose to use the code of the encounter in a “meet cute” way and here, it’s Baptiste who lights Cookie’s cigarette and this first look. Love at first sight in Nothing Hill, where friends make the meeting happen at the end, also inspired me a lot, but in my film, it’s the sister who brings about the reunion. But above all, I wanted it’s the drag that allows the meeting between the two boys, but also prevents it. I didn’t want it to be one boy’s desire for another that stood in the way, but rather Quentin’s work, which has no place in his life for Baptiste. Cookie is her own obstacle. Finally, I wanted to reproduce the pattern of the love triangle, they are only two but find themselves in threes. I wanted to explore the relationship between Baptiste and Cookie, between Baptiste and Quentin, but also between Cookie and Quentin. Who is Pablo Pauly, a talented actor whose career is about to explode? Drag in cinema is almost non-existent. What were your references or, on the contrary, your anti-models? Drag was still present in the collective imagination. There’s Priscilla, Mad of the Desert, released in 1994, which inspired me with its humour, the trouple and the road-movie it directed. There were also queens in Pédale douce and a transformist cabaret in Chouchou, for example. But my inspirations were more outside drag on screen. Spielberg and his way of filming the magic of the encounter, always with this figure of speech of the character stricken with wonder and these forward tracking shots, inspired me a lot. There is also a bit of Hitchcock’s Vertigo because Cookie is a real Hitchcockian blonde and of course a lot of Almodovar who filmed drag queens, but who also guided my writing of secondary characters who should never be utilitarian. In fact, I see my film as a mash-up between Little Miss Sunshine for the family road trip and Tournée de Mathieu Amalric for his burlesque.In your three short films [Un homme mon fils, Beauty Boys et Premier amour, ndlr], you were already filming Quentin Eck, but only in Cookie. Was this time necessary before offering him an “out of drag” character on screen? It was not thought of as a process, but it created a working and trusting relationship which then allowed me to ‘go further. But it is above all my view of drag that has changed as I lived with this subject. In the beginning, it was a simple inspirational figure and in my third film, it has become a person who evokes his non-drag civil identity. For our fourth collaboration, I took the liberty of inventing two characters, a fictional Cookie and a Quentin who is an imaginary civilian being.Paloma, the short film by the winner of Drag Race France, is available for freeThere is no questions from Baptiste or his girlfriend about his sexuality and it’s both beautiful and surprising. How did you come up with this character? Three Nights a Week is a film about crossing genres, of course, but also cinema genres, and Baptiste is a character who unfolds, who is in motion. I thought of him as a boy who was prevented at first, but who will develop his creativity in contact with queens. This is also the reason why at one point the film veers into a road movie because something opens up, it hits the road. I wrote it like an outbreak, at first it’s just a look, then it learns to express its desire and its love. In addition to the director, you’re a drag queen yourself. In which character do you find yourself the most? I follow all the characters, it’s a very collective self-portrait. I’m Baptiste six years ago when I discovered drag, I’m Cookie today, I’m Samia trying to co-build a relationship and I’m also Chiara when she says that “it’s not just drag in life“.Your film comes out after the Drag Race France phenomenon. Do you think it will be carried by the success of the show? I’m happy to arrive after Drag Race because I feel like I’m offering an additional object. Reality TV is the absence of off-screen, it’s a spectacle of showing everything and we build confessionals to access the inner voice of people. In the cinema, we work on the question of the off-screen and we show a phenomenon while leaving it a space behind the scenes to keep some mystery. There is also a magic of off, of what happens after the show. There was a first opening by television, but I think my film is a more poetic object which brings a complementary point of view. Faced with the immense popularity of drag queens, one can fear a dilution of the militant discourse inherent in this art. Was it important for you to incorporate political themes into your film? My film is a bit like a Trojan horse, there is a political thought running through it. We can see in it an object of pure entertainment, thought for pleasure and emotion, but it is a love film crossed by a political conscience which is mine because I think that desire is political, to be a man who wants another man, it’s political. I’m aware of the representations that I make so I also took great care of the female characters and I was attentive to the diversity in the choice of my actresses and my actors. I would also have liked to film more drag-kings, but for scheduling reasons, that wasn’t possible. But the most political thing for me was to show that we can socialize with our differences. On the technical team side, how did you surround yourself with costumes or make-up, fundamental for drag queens? J I chose all my collaborators, even the costumes and the make-up, because it was important to be consistent. I had two people at the suits [Clément Vachelard et Aurélien Di Roco, ndlr] and a very gifted wigmaker. The queens were their own make-up artist, but it was their only place of freedom, they had to accept that we dress them and that I choose their costumes, even if some outfits came from their wardrobe. I also had the chance to meet a head decorator [Clémence Ney, ndlr] who understood very well the world of drag and who was able to tell the prosaic side, but also the sophistication. The scene and the cinema are a fortiori antagonists. How do you film the spectacle, which is central to your film, well? I worked with the same teams that I had already formed for my short films. So I had the same cinematographer [Vadim Alsayed, ndlr] who knows how to film and light the queens very well and who is very good at filming both the spectacle and the intimacy. He knows how to be as close as possible to the actors in sensual scenes, but also manage big show scenes with lots of light and machinery. Calypso Baquey’s photos are exhibited at the Galerie Cinema, 26 rue Saint Claude, until November 26.
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