2026 RIIFF Filmmaker Spotlight Series: ÉCLATS, written by Lorette Nyssen
Article Written By Roman Olavarria
Lou finds herself feeling trapped in a medical center while recovering from her struggles due to her eating disorder. Written by Lorette Nyssen and directed by Maéva Chazalon, ÉCLATS unpacks personal struggles and the process of forming connections. A single night can be the catalyst for something great, which may be a bit absurd in its own ways. Nyssen’s character, Lou, has done so much to get to where she is in her stage of recovery, and a comforting connection with Esther causes a change. It reminds me of a post-screen discussion of the film, in which Nyssen was explaining one of the film’s imperative lines about a famous French “joke de papa,” absurd yet loving. Qu’est ce qui est transparent et qui court dans les champs ? Un troupeau de vitres. “What is transparent and runs through a field? A herd of windows.” This joke was apparently a meme not too long ago, but the important thing to take away is that it’s completely absurd. Just as Esther and Lou build a connection through their night out, the absurdity of the situation is not as important as their connection and love in the moment. Additionally, congratulations to the ÉCLATS team for tying for the First Prize for the Alternative Spirit Award (Best LGBTQ Short) at the RIIFF awards ceremony!
Roman Olavarria: ÉCLATS is a film depicting concepts of confinement, eating disorders, and finding oneself. How did you use your personal experiences to first write then star as your character in the film?
Lorette Nyssen: I have eating disorders myself. So it’s a theme I’m very familiar with. Lou, the main character, names her food to remember it. And I actually used to do that with my cereal bowls in the morning. I felt like there was something both a bit pathetic and funny about that. My ex-girlfriend and I laughed a lot about it at the time. She used to ask me lightly, “How did you name it today?” and we would laugh about my answer, even though the fact that I would name my food in the first place was pretty concerning. When I wrote Éclats, I wanted to encompass both aspects I felt about the disease. The heaviness of it, of the huge place that it occupied in my mind and in my life, but also of the lightness that could still be there despite everything, mostly thanks to the support and care of people who saw me beyond the disease and who made me remember to live.
What is funny though, is that I hadn’t planned to act in the movie at all. Or only as a voice. Now I feel like it was almost fate, since Lou and I are so alike. And I had acted in a few things before. But at the time, I had written it in the hope of making it an animation short. I also write for animation, so I thought it could be interesting and original to make an animated coming of age short film about eating disorders. Drawing is also usually a way for me to get inspiration, and to visualise what the story would look like. But imagining Éclats as an animation short was probably also influenced by my eating disorders themselves, in a way. Because there is something more controllable and comfortable to me when it comes to animation. There isn’t a set, you don’t have to travel, to live for full days with people you don’t know… You also don’t have to really shoot at night when you animate a night scene, or to eat real caramels when your character does, and that you only do her voice. So when Maéva Chazalon, Éclats’director, got interested in the project as a live action short and asked me if I would act in it, I got scared. And I hesitated a lot. But I eventually thought that it was a great idea. And that if I overcame that fear, it would be a really good exposure therapy. And what a therapy it was indeed. I’m very glad I agreed to do it, mostly thanks to the great team I worked with, who made it such a good time.
RO: How did you build a connection with your co-star Hanane El Yousfi? Were there any particularly difficult or easy things regarding your communications and acting with each other?
LN: Hanane El Yousfi and I met in 2020, during the shooting of L’école de la vie, a french TV series. I immediately felt like she was a great person, a really good actress, and even got a little bit fascinated by her aura, and how “solar” and warm she was. We got along well, and we kept in touch. When Maéva Chazalon and I started to look for an actress, I instinctively thought about Hanane for the role of Esther. I thought that Lou would see in Esther what I saw in Hanane when I met her, and that she would trust and follow her anywhere, like a source of light in the dark.
RO: What do you think happens to the characters once they walk over the hill in the film’s denouement, the end-scene?
LN: Everyone is free to imagine what feels right to them. To me, though, Lou and Esther are going back to the clinic. They needed to breathe again. To live something outside of their “patient’s life,” that would make them forget their sickness. But they also need medical help to keep living. It’s all about balance. The more they’ll live “real things,” the more they will forget to feed their sickness in controlling everything. And the more they will heal in the clinic, the more they will actually remember how to fully live. I feel like one can’t go without the other. They can’t only be seen as patients. But they’re not ready to go back to life outside of the clinic yet.
In the original screenplay, they’re actually going back to the clinic, far ahead of them. But the decor didn’t make it visually possible. And we felt like it wasn’t necessary to actually see the clinic in the end, and that it was even better to let people picture their own “following” of the story.
RO: How collaborative was the process in the making of this film? Were there any strengths to your team that you think other filmmakers can learn from?
LN: The film was low budget. So it was a team of volunteers, led by their passion of making movies. It was also an inclusive crew, most of us being queer members, and/or women, concerned by mental health, and wellbeing. Everyone was very welcoming, understanding, kind to and with each other and openminded. I felt comfortable with them, grateful that my story resonated in them, and also felt a feeling of belonging during the shoot (which doesn’t happen that often). I’ve been on a few sets in my life, and it rarely goes that smoothly, with such good vibes. There was even a “Memes” Whatsapp created for the shooting, and a looooooot of creative and very funny memes done (hundreds of them). I feel grateful to have met so many great people, all united to tell a story that means so much to me.
RO: How do you emotionally and physically prepare for scenes that you find challenging? Were there any scenes in this film that you struggled with? Were there any scenes that you thought were a struggle for the team?
LN: I think agreeing to act in the movie was a preparation in itself. I was kind of living Lou’s anxiety and challenges at the same time as her, through her. I was both terrified and excited to shoot during the night, outside of my comfort zone. To eat the same meals as the team members, at different hours than I was used to. And like Lou, I felt anxious about the caramel. I didn’t want to eat as many caramels as the number of takes they would need for the film (number which seemed very high). So we planned a strategy that would release my anxiety: I would eat the caramels only in a few precise shots, otherwise I wouldn’t even put them in my mouth. But things didn’t go as planned. In reality, it was pretty difficult to simulate the moment of putting the caramel in my mouth. So I did have to take as many caramels as the number of takes they filmed. Fortunately for me though, the caramels were actually too hard to swallow and I had to spit them out after each take. But I couldn’t get over the fact that they still had time to dissolve in my mouth. And not being able to control and know the exact quantity I had absorbed was very challenging to me. But at that moment, making the movie we wanted was more important than anything, so I had to overcome the discomfort and be as brave as Lou! And, just like her, I was proud of my own “small victory” afterwards.
I think the main challenge for the team members was to “light the night.” Until not long before the shooting, we didn’t actually know if we were going to be able to do it. And I was getting ready to change the screenplay to transform it into a day escape. But we eventually found a way to do it. I included a little light in the story to make the presence of light more meaningful and credible. And the light crew worked really hard to make all of it look as natural as possible.
RO: From “expressing yourself” in the World Dance France qualifiers 2015 as a member of the “Two Dance Crew” to playing as aspiring PE teacher and police officer Emmanuelle Petit in the 2023 film Cloche Petite aux merveilles du pays, where do you hope your artistic career will take you? Where does ÉCLATS fit into this?
LN: I want to keep writing and acting. I’m already working on other screenplays and wish to write with, and for, other people as well. I also keep auditioning for things, whenever there are roles matching my profile (not that many to be honest). But Éclats gives me confidence in the fact that I can also write my own original roles. It is sometimes really difficult to consider acting as a career path, because even though I am lucky to have acted in a few things, I know and now daily experiment the fact that getting acting jobs is actually super rare, and that it will get harder the older I will get. Mostly as a woman, and also as someone with a profile that can be considered as “non-typical.” So knowing that it is actually possible to write my own “path,” in a way, makes me hopeful for the future. I think about Lena Dunham with her series Girls for example, or Phoebe Waller-Bridge with Fleabag. They’re a huge inspiration to me, as writers as much as actresses. Maybe I dream too big, but someday, I wish I could create my own series like they did, that was near as personal, as good and as meaningful as theirs.
RO: Do you have a favorite moment or line in the film? What makes it your favorite?
LN: I love it when Lou and Esther are “going to bed,” and they overact their tiredness in front of the nurse, while they’re actually planning to go out. It works as well with the audience as I imagined it on the paper. So it is very satisfying as a writer. Also, it’s such a “coming of age” and nostalgic moment to me. It reminds me of the excitement and the freedom I felt during school trips, when my friends and I did “forbidden” stuff, like running in the corridors at night, hiding from the teachers, to go someplace we weren’t supposed to, such as the “nightclub” of a youth hostel, or to the beach…
RO: What are some projects that you have coming up? Anything that you are particularly excited about?
LN: An animated series called La table du fond, that I created and that I’m still developing with my producer Clément Tréboux (Melting Productions), my co-director Anna Vichot and my co-writer Orane Gibier. It’s a series for young adults, featuring different moments of life, between different characters, around one same table in the same pizzeria : the table at the back. We’re planning a first season of 30 episodes (4’ each). Always with natural dialogues, in a bittersweet tone (my favorite tone I think haha). I had written and directed four episodes in 2022 by myself, with no budget at all, to experiment what I wanted and how it could look like. These episodes linked here eventually helped me find a producer.
I’m also planning on working with Maéva Chazalon on the long run, for different projects. We’re currently talking about a web series, another short film, and even maybe a feature. I really love our collaboration.
I also wrote a very personal short film that I would like to direct myself. It’s an auto-fiction with an almost documentary approach, about a daughter (that I would play) and her mother, who have to get far away from each other for the first time.
Finally, I wrote a feature that is far too long for now (132 pages),but I really REALLY enjoyed writing and that I think has the potential, when I get to rewrite it and simplify it a bit, to become quite good. It’s a bittersweet coming of age movie that takes place in 2008, featuring Morgane, a 13 year old loner, who’s gonna have to fight her social anxiety to live something with her first girl crush. I’m trying to find a production for that project, but might have to write a short version of that film before getting enough credit to seriously be considered to direct the longer version. (And I’m planning to act in it, a small part as a PE! Like Emmanuelle Petit in Cloche Petite aux Merveilles du pays haha, I guess that role I played inspired me)
Other than that, I’m working on new ideas for other projects, such as another animated series (kind of visually absurd, but with natural dialogues still), or another short (about a girl who dances), but they are not concrete enough to really talk about them yet.
Also, I would really like to keep acting in as many great projects as I can. And to collaborate, as a screenwriter, with directors and/or other screenwriters from all around the world. To get involved in their existing projects or to create new original projects together.
