The story behind French-Jewish directing partners’ film ‘Just An Illusion’ - interview

French-Jewish directing duo Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache have released their most personal film to date, 'Just An Illusion,' now showing in Israeli theaters. The movie offers a semi-autobiographical glimpse into a Mizrahi Jewish family living in a Paris suburb during the 1980s.

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It is a special movie and a very personal movie. But it also moves people and allows them to experience something personal of their own.

The filmmakers chose to tell this story amidst a backdrop of rising antisemitism in France and globally. Known for their humanistic approach and deep character portrayals in previous successful films like 'The Intouchables' and 'The Specials,' Toledano and Nakache delved into their own lives for this project. Toledano's parents were Moroccan immigrants, while Nakache's were from Algeria.

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Olivier and I have lived through many things together during our careers in cinema. But it was totally unexpected that our two fathers passed away at almost the same moment. For me, it was on the first day of shooting. For Olivier, by chance, it was at the end of the making of the movie, in the editing room, almost at the end of the process.

'Just An Illusion' is particularly poignant as it is dedicated to the memory of both directors' fathers. The film's production was marked by personal tragedy, with Toledano's father passing away on the first day of shooting and Nakache's father dying in the editing room near the end of the process. This timing led the directors to feel a sense of premonition and a strong desire to capture a specific period of their shared past.

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Naturally, it was as though we had felt in advance that they were going to leave us. We wanted to depict and capture a piece of the time we spent together in the 1980s.

Toledano described the filmmaking process as intense, feeling as though he was living "with one hand in reality and one hand in fiction." He found solace in working with an actor who embodied his father, complete with mannerisms like reading the newspaper daily and a typical Sephardi tendency to have the last word. Despite the difficult final years of their fathers' lives, the directors aimed to create a tribute to the richness and wonder of their lives, not just their hardships.

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At the end of their lives, everything was very hard for our fathers to live through. But you cannot remain only with the image of the end of his life, because the rest of his life was wonderful.