Part of the reason my guest, French filmmaker Boris Lojkine, has been so amazingly successful with his films, most recently SOULEYMANE'S STORY (2024), is his humility and understanding of how to portray people not like himself.

Instead of making a "Parisian film about a middle age couple in the crisis of existential bullshit" -- his words -- he has made feature films that depict the life of an immigrant. Paris was the setting for his latest film, but he wanted it to come across as a foreign ZIP code.

This was all borne out of his roots as a documentarian, and I am simply in awe of his story. And the fact that he eschews all social media. You're living the dream, Boris.

In this episode, Boris and I discuss:

why he's gone beyond most French filmmakers to show France from the outside;
how he got his start in filmmaking as a philosophy teaching, making two documentaries in Vietnam;
how narrative films can lose the reality of documentaries;
the reason immigration factors into so many of his stories;
if he's the right person to tell an immigrants' story;
telling the story of female protagonists in his films;
how Sean Baker helped him get distribution;
if he's disappointed that his previous films aren't available for streaming;
what led him to create SOULEYMANE'S STORY and the risks he took in making the film;
the documentary feeling in his films and how he handles actors;
does he see it as a compliment that other people are making films with similar stories?
what's next for him and how filmmakers should be more adventurous.

Boris' Indie Film Highlights: I ONLY REST IN THE STORM (2025) dir. by Pedro Pinho; A POET (2025) dir. by Simón Mesa Soto

Memorable Quotes:

"I started to make documentary films because my ex-wife was making documentary films and I saw how she was doing and I thought, okay, I will try to do my my own films too."

"I wanted to make films abroad. I was not interested in making a Parisian film about a middle age couple in the crisis of existential bullshit."

"There is the question of legitimacy and sometimes people, usually young people, younger people than younger than I am from, from another generation, they ask me, what's your legitimacy? And now I answer my legitimacy is zero. But because my legitimacy is zero, I have to work more."

"I have to listen, and I think the most important thing in my work is not to direct, but to listen."

"I was talking with a Congolese director. And my neighbor in the restaurant, he told me, oh, you are Boris. I watched your film yesterday and it's an incredible film. Let me talk to my friend Sean Baker, and he talked to his friend Sean Baker, who made a tweet. And the week after, we had a distributor, you know, sometimes you just have to eat Vietnamese in a restaurant."

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