Françoise Lebrun on Paul Vecchiali's Le Cancre

In an interview conducted in Paris on September 12, 2016, actress Françoise Lebrun discusses Paul Vecchiali's film Le Cancre, subtitled 'Carnet de belles' as an echo to Julien Duvivier's Un carnet de Bal (1937). Lebrun plays Valentine, a role she describes as a 'femme maïeutique' (midwife woman) who accompanies the filmmaker through doubts. The film features actresses Annie Cordy and Françoise Arnoul, evoking a popular French cinema now distant. Vecchiali's production style is hands-on, shooting in his house in the South of France with a small crew, contrasting with industrial cinema. Lebrun has known Vecchiali for over thirty years, first through Jean Eustache and the Cahiers du cinéma network, and later at the Studio Parnasse screenings. She recalls working on En haut des marches (1983) and Trous de mémoire (1984), an improvised film shot on leftover film stock near Versailles. Vecchiali, a polytechnician, is described as both classical and baroque, with a controlled yet free approach to filmmaking. The interview was published by artpress.