Belgian filmmaker Cato Kusters makes her powerfully affecting feature debut with an adaptation of Fleur Pierets’ acclaimed 2019 book, Julian, a memoir of love, activism, and grief. In 2017, Fleur (Nina Meurisse) and her wife Julian P. Boom (Laurence Roothooft) launched 22 The Project, a performance art piece in which the couple planned to get married in every country where same-sex marriage was legal. The name of the project not only celebrated the number of countries that had legalized equal marriage at the time, but also highlighted the work that still needed to be done. Fleur and Julian went on to marry in New York, Amsterdam, Antwerp and Paris, but after their fourth wedding, Julian was diagnosed with brain cancer.
Following the world premiere of Julian at the 50th Toronto International Film Festival, Cato Kusters spoke exclusively with The Queer Review’s editor James Kleinmann about what drew her to bringing this remarkable real-life story to the screen, how she went about casting her two leads, the lasting impact of 22 The Project and the timeliness of this film.
James Kleinmann, The Queer Review: what was it about Fleur Pierets’ book that made you want to devote your time to adapting it for the screen?
Cato Kusters: “Fleur, whose life Julian is based on, is an incredible speaker. Right after her book was published, I was driving in my car listening to her talking about the story on the radio. I didn’t know who she was, but I was so insanely impressed and moved by the way that she spoke about her love for Julian and what they had gone through together. I had to park my car by the side of the road because I was sobbing.”
“There’s so much activism to their story and what they did, but what struck me was the love with which she spoke about her wife and it hit me that that was the most activist thing that you could possibly put out there. It was all so simple in the end. There’s so much to this story, so many themes and moving parts, but the weight of it, the entire importance of it, comes from this love. That was super resonant from the way that she spoke and that’s what I took away from the first time I heard her talking. It’s what I took from the book and that’s what we’ve been wanting to highlight through making the film.”
I think the film conveys that beautifully, their love for each other is so potent.
“The 22 project is extremely valuable, but the activism for me was in their relationship and what it embodied. They fell in love immediately and the very nature of what marriage is was so beautifully embodied through their relationship. They met and immediately promised themselves to each other and they kept that promise to take care of each other until the very end. It is so simple when you look at it that way.”
“Of course, you can have whatever opinion you want on marriage, but something that should not be jeopardized in any way is the nature of that promise between two people. If you want a ritual to celebrate that you should be allowed to. I still do not get why you wouldn’t understand that. We always felt like if we could show the love between these two people, then the activism would naturally follow from that. The project is the backbone to the timeline that we use for the film to hang their love story on.”
The intimacy on screen between Nina as Fleur and Laurence as Julian is really touching, how did you go about casting them?
“There was a very specific dynamic between the real-life Fleur and Julian that made this project possible. When it came to casting, we didn’t necessarily need to find people who looked exactly like them physically, but we needed them to have something essentially in common with the real-life Fleur and Julian. We saw over 300 people including so many great actors who were very strong technically, but casting is like dating, it just has to click. You have to recognize something that you see within these real people.”
“We found Laurence pretty early on. She’d read the book and had written a note to Angelo Tijssens, my co-writer, saying, ‘I’ve heard that you might be working on adapting the book, if there’s ever a casting I’d love to come because I love this woman and this character and I feel like it should be me.’ I pretended that I didn’t know about the note at the casting because I didn’t want to give her any advantage, but she had this understanding of the character that no one else brought to the table and it was so beautiful to watch. But you can’t really decide on Julian before you’ve found your Fleur. So we kept on casting and matched Laurence with so many different people. Months went by and we still hadn’t found our Fleur.”
“One evening, I was at home watching a film called Le ravissement in which Nina plays an important supporting character. She had such a strong light to her and such a presence in that role which I recognized from the real-life Fleur. So we called Nina’s agent and asked if she could come and do a casting with us in Brussels. Two minutes after she came into the room, Laurence, myself and our casting director, Sebastian Moradiellos, all knew that this was the match that we’d been looking for. They had this playful competitiveness and an immediate chemistry which was exactly what we were looking for. I will never forget the day that we saw these two together for the first time.”
So when it came to shooting it was about capturing that chemistry that was naturally there between them?
“Exactly. From the beginning we saw how similar their dynamic was to the one between the real-life Fleur and Julian, where Julian’s always entertained by Fleur and she’s very much on the side enjoying watching her. That was a dynamic that settled with Laurence and Nina very early on and it was something that we could totally use for the film. We spent time together because we wanted them to trust each other completely and fall in love in their own way. I also had them spend time together without me being there. In a way, they fell in love with each other, and that was going on throughout the shoot. You could see that happening, especially in the camcorder footage that they shot.”
“I wasn’t there for a lot of that footage. Some scenes were scripted, but as they were learning how to use the camera they would film each other. That was always really fun to watch when I’d check the footage late at night. We encouraged them to do more of it and you can see these two women growing so fond of each other through that play. Every time I watched new camcorder footage it was like Christmas morning to me, it was beautiful watching them grow towards each other.”
What were your other choices for the visual language of the film and your guidance for your cinematographer Michel Rosendaal?
“We didn’t want the visuals to interfere with or distract from the narrative in any way. You have all these jumps in time, but what was always going to be the focus was watching Fleur watching Julian. I wanted that to be close but objective, so there’s hardly any camera movement in the film. We wanted it to be stark.”
I love the sense of chosen family that you create in the film, with Fleur and Julian’s support group including Ed, it shows how queer folks can really be there for each other.
“It’s a micro community and it shows a bit more of the world that they’re living in. It also says a lot about the characters when they’re welcome and safely connected. I wanted to show that they’re well surrounded by good people. Ed is a composite character, an combination of three different real-life people who at some point played an important role for the couple. We found that mixing these people together created this very colorful character. He’s a drag queen, but he’s also a doctor and he’s super caring. You don’t need a lot more when someone like that is around and Peter Seynaeve brings such warmth to the character.”
What does the film receiving its world premiere here at TIFF mean to you?
“It’s huge. We’ve travelled really far to be here, but there is no festival that we’d rather premiere at. The message of equality and acceptance actually feels a little bit dangerous right now in North America, which is sad, but I think it’s a good thing that we’re here. It’s been so great feeling that little shock waves like Julian are not only necessary here, but they’re also being welcomed by the festival organization. Everyone has been very responsive to the political side of the story, which is a tension that’s going on here and it proves that we’re not done telling this story. We will maybe never be done telling this story.”
It does feel even more relevant here now than it might have done a few years ago.
“I am of the opinion that at some point, somewhere in the world, this story is always going to be interesting because it’s a time capsule, like the project itself. It was called 22, but by the time they were doing it, there were 24 countries where same-sex marriage was legal. Now they are 38, but there are 196 countries in the world so there’s obviously still so much work to do. If we ever make it to 196 countries, at some point in history it was only 22 and it’s important to take that in for a moment. With everything that’s going on today, it feels very urgent, but in my opinion, it would have been interesting a year ago and it will be in five years because it’s something that is always moving.”
The film received a passionate standing ovation here at TIFF, clearly people were deeply moved by it at the screening I was at. What has the reaction so far meant to you?
“It’s a very meta film. It happened in real life and Fleur is here with us so there is so much more going on than it just being a film screening. Every time we’ve screened it, especially when Fluer is present, it feels like a ritualistic moment that you share with the audience which I love. There are real-life implications and there is a real-life history to all of this which I think really hits people. It was beautiful to have that confirmed and to feel people take that in with Fleur there. I think she’s incredible and I feel so fortunate that we got to make this film together. I’m extremely thankful that people are acknowledging our film and acknowledging Fleur and everything that she’s built so far.”
By James Kleinmann
Cato Kusters’ Julian received its world premiere at the 50th Toronto International Film Festival.
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