3. Podcast

Milieux Bibliques by Thomas Römer

Thomas Römer is a theologian who teaches at the Collège de France, specialising in the history of the Bible. He will teach you things you might not otherwise know – for example, that the Bible has many origins, Assyrian, Babylonian and so on. He also talks about the origins of the word “Yahweh”. He’s a brilliant scholar. I’m a big podcast listener – I’m basically going back to academic studies via podcasts, and Collège de France is an excellent resource. Littérature française moderne et contemporaine by Antoine Compagnon is another series I’d recommend.

4. Art

Surrealism exhibition at Centre Pompidou, Paris

I’m not a natural fan of surrealism but I’d like to see this exhibition before it closes [on 13 January 2025] because I’d like it to convince me of the movement’s merits. Surrealist painting, by Dalí and Tanguy and so on, I find a bit facile, a bit rough around the edges, and the texts are very uneven. The movement suffers from a kind of forced unity and the big dilemma was their relationship with communism – Breton had his Stalinist period. But if anything convinces me, it’ll be this show. I’ve heard it’s very good and all the greats of surrealism are in it.

5. Film

Diamantino (2018, dir Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt)

The directors who made this excellent and quite surreal film are more fine artists than film-makers. It’s the story of a young Portuguese footballer called Diamantino who’s brilliant but a bit stupid, and he’s starting to develop breasts. When he scores goals, loads of fluffy dogs stream on to the field. He’s full of empathy and his dream is to try to rescue African migrants drowning in the Mediterranean. It’s a beautiful film and probably one of the influences on Emilia Pérez.

6. Event

Paris Olympics

I didn’t believe in the idea behind the Paris Olympics at all. I didn’t think you could use the city the way they ended up using it, but I have to say it was fabulous, how they managed to take all the sports out of the stadiums and put them in the city. The swimming in the Seine I found amazing. And I loved what artistic director Thomas Jolly did with the opening ceremony. Everything that was triggering people, like Marie Antoinette holding her own severed head, I really enjoyed. There was an irreverence to it that I loved.

Interview interpreted from French by Abla Kandalaft