Emmanuel Tenenbaum
“My parents are both doctors. They always impressed me as they are amongst the most generous people I’ve ever met, working day and night for their patients. Since they worked until really late but still wanted to see my brother and I every day, we all took the habit of sleeping a little too late, which is now a family trait.”
“In France we still have a strong public school system so that’s where I studied. I went to a High School in the center of Nancy, which is exactly what you’d expect of a French High School: imposing, beautiful, and a little bit austere.”
“After my “baccalauréat”, I chose a rather specific path and enrolled for the “Scientific Preparatory Classes”, an extremely selective system where you train for 2 or 3 years and then compete for small, elitist engineering schools. You’d do 60 hours of maths and physics weekly. Being 18, it was honestly very tough. My main pleasure then was to go to the movies when I had time: I didn’t know that much about movies before, and it’s actually when I discovered that I loved films.”
“Thanks to the system I described, I got accepted at the French National Institute of Telecommunications in Paris. After two years there I went to Madrid for an Erasmus year, at the Technical University of Madrid in Spain. I studied Biomedical Engineering there, and I loved it so much that I enrolled for another Master in that field. While in Spain, I also followed a course at an evening film school called Metropolis C.E, where I learned the basics of filmmaking, we had a 16mm course, the level wasn’t very high but it was fun and I made some good friends. I graduated with a MSc in Biomedical Engineering and a MSc in Telecommunications.”
“After my studies, I went to work for Philips Healthcare in the Netherlands, in the development of MRI scanners. Those are very high-tech machines that are not related with filmmaking, but during my first year I gathered all my holiday days and I went to attend a course at the NFTS in London called “Director’s Series”. That course changed everything: we had an extraordinary film teacher, Brian Gilbert. He’s the one who showed me how to really direct a film. Once back at Philips, with the help of some colleagues I created a couple of funny short films parodying our work life, and those became viral within the company. Before that, I didn’t know if I had any talent at all, but the reactions were so positive that they gave me some confidence to start a new career. I decided to quit my job and that’s when I started my freelance filmmaking career.”
“The joke within the family is that my brother decided to be a violinist, but my parents felt reassured because since I was a corporate worker, I could help him should he run into financial trouble. Imagine their face when I told them I’d become a creative too. Well joke aside, I was already 27 when I switched career so I didn’t need the permission of my parents, but although I suppose they feel some occasional worry sometimes, they never show it and they have always been extremely encouraging. I often wondered if I would have found the strength to switch career If they had been opposed to it. I really admire people who follow their path against all winds, because the industry is hard enough even if you have the family blessing.”
“My biggest influence is definitely Brian Gilbert, who is teaching at the NFTS in London. He’s originally Australian and directed several films in Hollywood before he started teaching in London. Although the course was only one month long, his influence has been so big on me that I think he changed everything. He’s my personal hero.”
“I started freelancing immediately after switching careers, in 2011. At first I was lucky enough to make projects for my former employer. I did a lot of “creative internal communications”, alongside some classic corporate videos. We had quite some fun doing this. The creative life however is constantly changing and over the years I found myself working on a TV show for BBC Worldwide, or in remote areas of Brazil teaching films. No year has ever been like the one before. It sounds really good but it can also be quite tough in period where you want some stability.”
“Parallelly to this, I produced and directed my first non-student short film, Déjeuner du Matin, an adaptation of the poem of Jacques Prévert. Although I hadn’t found my style then and it was more of an essay than a film, it went well and it has 400k views on Youtube.”
"My first paying job was a campaign of internal communications for Philips. We took very old films and re-edited them and dubbed them in a funny way, in order to pass some knowledge to the employees. It was very well received and fun to make.”
“Although I am normally based in Amsterdam, I’m spending some time in Montreal right now, where I have the opportunity to spend more time with my colleague screenwriter Guillaume Fournier: we make all our films together and are always on the look for new ideas. We have made 2 short films together and I’m about to shoot our most ambitious script so far, this fall in London. Montreal is an incredible city full of creativity, with a new wave of talented filmmakers. It’s really nice to be here, and I’m impressed by the “new wave” they have here. I advise anyone to check the short films from Quebec, they are mind blowing.”
“People tend to say that the film industry is hard, that you need to know people, etc. I honestly never found that it was an impenetrable industry, despite not knowing anyone there at first. However, what I can say is that my biggest obstacle is myself: I know that if I want to have a lasting film career, I need to improve myself constantly. That’s really the hard part.”