Director Fred Baillif discusses his bold new unscripted film, which takes place in a care home in Geneva
“I believe I’m doing social work with my films,” says Fred Baillif. “This is why I became a filmmaker.” Bailiff, 49, has not only written and directed La Mif, a lively, empathetic drama about a group of at-risk girls in Geneva, but he paid for the film upfront out of his own savings. “The fact the dialogue is all improvised, it was impossible to find money for it.” The drama’s young leads are first-time actors, Baillif explains, all seven of them from care homes themselves. “I wasn’t going to write their dialogue. They know it better than me.”
Despite his modesty, Baillif is fully acquainted with the world of La Mif. In his 20s, Baillif was a full-time social worker at a youth detention centre, and in 2014 he directed Tapis rouge, a comedy-drama about a social worker who collaborates with teenagers on a film that takes them to Cannes. “It was quite difficult when I released Tapis rougein Switzerland,” Baillif notes. “It was the first time a Swiss filmmaker had made a movie with mostly Black people. It wasn’t very well seen at the time.”
While La Mif didn’t compete at Cannes, it won the Grand Prix at the Berlinale’s Generation 14+ strand and was picked up by the BFI for UK distribution. When I meet with Baillif at BFI Southbank in February, it’s after a weekend of spirited Q&A previews in London. “The story is universal,” he says. “It’s not only in Switzerland.”
The film’s title refers to a slang practice of reversing and altering words, hence “famille“ becomes “la mif”, but it also summarises the ensemble’s explosive energy: here’s seven girls, all bonding and bickering under the same roof, all using their own teenage terminology. Baillif, citing his documentary background, grants each character their own personal chapter, allowing their tragic backstories to be fleshed out sufficiently. However, around these dark details of abuse, the film is often buoyant and funny, delivering the hijinks of a chaotic coming-of-age comedy.
To shape these stories, Baillif workshopped with the cast for two years beforehand, Mike Leigh-style. Still, he emphasises that none of the actors’ arcs are autobiographical. “It’s important to be clear that we’re doing fiction, not a documentary. It’s based on their real personalities, but that’s different for me. I told them, ‘Nothing from your real life will be in the movie – unless you want it to. If you want to bring something that you’ve experienced into your character, let’s talk about it. It’s your decision.’”
If the ensemble drama can be said to have a traditional plot, it starts from an incident in which a 16-year-old girl is caught having intercourse with a 13-year-old boy. As a result, the care home becomes a girls-only institution. However, rather than discuss sex education, the board members are more concerned about minimising negative press coverage. “The movie talks about this taboo around sexuality,” Bailiff says. “Minors’ sexuality, it does exist. So we should talk about it. But it’s delicate, and you have to be careful.”
“Minors’ sexuality, it does exist. So we should talk about it. But it’s delicate, and you have to be careful” – Fred Baillif
A core theme of La Mif is that staff are forbidden from revealing too much of themselves to the kids, and thus “la MIF” can’t truly include the adults living in the same building. “Protection is important,” Baillif says. “But what do we really do for the kids, besides protecting them? We put children in homes, which are like a ghetto. It’s putting them away from society, and telling them, ‘You’re different from others.’ Do we really help them grow? When you tell someone they’re different, it has an impact on their personality, on their development, on their self-confidence.”
When Baillif worked with care homes, he attempted to introduce kids to the arts, but was left frustrated by how low a priority it was. “Social workers spend too much time with bureaucracy,” he continues. “They don’t have time for creativity. There’s so much put into protecting the children that we forget about everything else.” They’re too scared of breaking the rules? “Yes. Because of the reputation of the foundations, we had to be careful all the time. That’s a big problem.”
Before his stint as a social worker, Baillif spent seven years as a professional, internationally capped basketball player; later, in his early days as a PA in the film and TV industry, he earned extra cash by DJ-ing at night. Both jobs, Baillif explains, indirectly shaped La Mif. “When I was a basketball player and a DJ, I was very intuitive, and it trained me to develop my ability to improvise. Especially basketball. Basketball has a lot of rules, and when you’re on the floor, you’re always improvising around those rules. I was a point guard, meaning I was the leader on the court, making my teammates play a better game. This is exactly what I do today as a filmmaker.”
As for non-basketball influences, Baillif namechecks Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, perhaps because of where we’re sat, Abdellatif Kechiche’s L’Esquive, and Laurent Cantet’s The Class. In fact, The Class was so pivotal, he studied the DVD’s behind-the-scenes footage to learn how Cantet collaborated with his cast. During workshops for La Mif, the actors didn’t rehearse scenes that would appear in the film, so as to preserve their freshness. Anaïs Uldry, who plays Audrey, is now auditioning for future projects. “I told them, ‘You don’t have to be good, you just have to be yourself.’ They then had fun, and were confident when we started shooting.”
“For me, it’s almost impossible to keep a distance. If I really want to help the kids, I have to be close” – Fred Baillif
In March, Baillif will start workshopping with social workers for his next feature, this time a drama focusing on immigration. With La Mif finally getting a release in Switzerland, the director’s also anticipating some discussions in his home country. Several times in the film, Lora (Claudia Grob, a first-time actor who managed a care home for 20 years) shies away from elucidating her own traumatic past; when a girl is suddenly absent, the staff refuse to reveal her whereabouts to the kids as it’d break the rules. Yet when Caroline threatens to kill herself, a social worker comforts her with a telling approach: “I’m not staff here – it’s Oumar talking to you.” Oumar proceeds to tell Caroline about how he overcame his own demons, his own suicidal urges, during which she listens attentively.
“This is the reason why I’m not working in institutions like this anymore, because they keep telling you about the professional distance you must have,” Baillif says. “For me, it’s almost impossible to keep a distance. If I really want to help the kids, I have to be close. And the movie is asking: it’s good to protect them, but are we allowed to love them? We’re not.” The director sighs. “And for me, that’s a problem. Because for me, the kids, what they need is not only protection. They also need love. Who is going to give them that?”
La Mif is released in UK cinemas on February 25