AFAM: Hello Guillaume. Thank you very much for agreeing to answer our questions. It is a very unusual interview because your professional career is very unusual. Engineer by education (Ai 201), you decided to go into an acting and film director career. How come?
Guillaume: Hi AFAM, Thank you very much for having me. I love unusual interviews. After our school, ENSAM, I did several interviews for mechanical and consulting companies but I realized that wasn't what I wanted at the moment. I wanted to travel, which I did as a model: Athens, Paris, Singapore, Hong Kong, Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Miami. But modeling wasn't fulfilling my brain, and being from Cannes, I needed Cinema in my life. I went on studying Meisner acting technique at the William Esper Studio in New York. In a short period of time, I ended up working under the direction of three time Academy Award winner Emmanuel "Chivo" Lubezki (The Revenant, Birdman), and David Fincher (Fight Club, Seven), acted along such house hold names as Eva Longoria (Desperate Housewives) and Jane Fonda (Barbarella), and twice collaborated with the David Lynch Foundation, even receiving this compliment from David Lynch (Mulholland Drive, Twin Peaks) himself: "Guillaume, you are a great actor". After directing several Music Videos and Short Films, and writing numerous spec scripts (one of them awarded by Francis Ford Coppola himself), I wrote, directed, produced and acted in "Devils in Disguise", my first feature film. It had its World Premiere at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood and it was watched 27 million times. I then co-wrote, co-directed and co-acted with Vesper Egon my second feature film, “Whenever I'm Alone With You”, a romantic comedy in the vein of the French New Wave that was shot in Cannes and premiered at the prestigious Oldenburg International Film Festival in September 2013. Vesper won Best Actress for her role in the film at the Matera International Film Festival. The film is currently touring festivals around the world. ulule.com/campanacci for more infos on "Whenever I'm Alone with You".
AFAM: please tell us more about your current and future projects.
Guillaume: My third feature film will either be: --SPOILED, about my fucked-up life as a model in Asia. It was a screenplay finalist at Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival in October 2023. --The adaptation of the best seller memoir of one of the world’s most efficient marijuana traffickers.
AFAM: you have been living in New York City, USA. Please tell us a bit more about this period of your life.
Guillaume: Yes, after 3 years in Miami, I moved to NYC to study acting. I loved it there. It is such a cinematic city. Each corner tells a different story. But my south of France blood couldn't deal with the cold so I moved to Los Angeles after 2 years.
AFAM: How being an engineer and a gadz’arts helped you in your acting and movie director career?
Guillaume: At first, I heard a lot of "it's a shame you never used your degree, such a shame you studied all these years for nothing". I even started to believe it. But then I realized ENSAM shaped me as a director. All my fellow Gadzarts work in such different industries: from finance to construction to consulting. We learnt how to learn. We adapt ourselves to any industry. Mine is just a little more different. But still, a film director manages a project, deals with logistics, has a whole team to make it happen, takes a thousand decisions a minute. All these could be said for an engineer.
AFAM: Thank you very much, Guillaume.
Guillaume: Merci AFAM!
AFAM: January 2024 (TBC) second feature film, “Whenever I'm Alone With You” will be shown at L'Hotel des Arts et Metiers at Iena.
Guillaume Campanacci (in the middle) during one of the industry events together with producer Torsten Neumann and actrice/co-producer Vesper Egon
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