Charlotte Gainsbourg Jane Birkin Documentary Trailer Released
Charlotte Gainsbourg will make her directorial debut with Jane By Charlotte, a documentary about her mother, the actress and singer Jane Birkin, which premieres 8 July at the Cannes Film Festival. And today fans of the musical family can get their first taste of the film with the release of the trailer.
Gainsbourg told The Hollywood Reporter that after 37 years as an actress and singer, Charlotte Gainsbourg’s main motivation for making the documentary was simply that she wanted to spend more time with her mother: “I needed to get close to her, and I couldn’t without an excuse. So the excuse was to get a team together and ask her if I could film her. The idea was to be able to look at her really with the eye of a daughter.”
The debut filmmaker was keen to present a different side of her mother in the documentary than previous treatments of her and husband Serge’s story have presented: “In France, a lot of the footage that happened in the 70s, where my parents are together, everybody has seen. Everybody has an image of her in those years. I didn’t want to have these beautiful but stereotyped images of her. I wanted her today. I didn’t care about what people knew of her or what they wanted to see of her. It was done in a very, very selfish way for my own pleasure.”
Gainsbourg’s parents – Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg – divorced in 1981, and Serge died in 1991. Since then, Charlotte has sought to preserve both of their legacies — the film features a visit to Serge’s Paris home, which Charlotte ha preserved since his death and hopes to open as a museum: “In France, he’s so well-known. He belongs to everyone. The only thing that was still mine and only mine was his house. I’m not able to go to the cemetery because there are always a lot of people there. I’m able to go to his house and shut the door and just be there for him and for myself. So it means putting an end to that, but I think it’s much needed after 30 years. I have to do it.”