Behind a successful sex scene in the cinema sometimes hides an intimacy coordinator. The discussion on the reality of this new profession in France was one of the strong points of the Conference for parity, equality and diversity in cinema and audiovisual, organized on December 11 by the Collective 50/50 at the Arab World Institute. Interview with Monia Aït El Hadj, pioneer of this profession in France.
RFI: You have been an intimacy coordinator in cinema and audiovisual for four years and you have worked on films like Dangerous relationships or series like Emily in Paris. How do you define your profession? ?
This is a person who will come to support and collaborate with the direction and the performers to create intimate scenes and nudity scenes. This is a person who will come and try to create a culture of consent on a production scale, who will open a space where the performers will be able to express their limits and who will facilitate the choreographic process in order to match what a director has imagined what is acceptable or not acceptable for an artist to do.
At the beginning, you were a lawyer. How did you become an intimacy coordinator ?
Yes, I had been a lawyer for a very long time and then at one point, I stopped, because I wanted to work in cinema. I went to film school and after my studies, I heard about this profession in the United States. It was quite triggering for me in the sense that this profession and the reasons why it was created had a lot of meaning for me. I had the feeling of being able to bring something new and useful to the cinema and audiovisual industry and more broadly to live performance.
During filming, when is it mandatory to have an intimacy coordinator on set? ?
In France, there is no obligation. It is at the discretion of producers or actors who ask their producer to be accompanied, when they have a project where there is intimacy. But there is no obligation as such.
During the Conference for Parity, Equality and Diversity in Cinema and Audiovisual, several people, an actress, a director, a casting director, an assistant director recounted their experience, explaining that the presence of an intimacy coordinator – who is there to ensure that boundaries are respected – gave more, not less, freedom to make the film. Isn’t it paradoxical ?
We are not the morality police. We are not a form of censorship. We are not here to erase sexuality or nudity. That’s not the point at all. On the contrary, it is a question of supporting the staging in its intentions and ensuring that the actors can work on this intimate content in a professional and ethical framework. And from there, artists are often much more comfortable and sometimes willing to go further than what was initially imagined.
What are the dangers that actors and actresses are exposed to during filming ?
There are plenty of dangers around an intimate scene or a nudity scene. We are already working on our own body. When we work, it is our body that is affected. When we kiss, it’s really our mouth that is touched. When you haven’t prepared anything at all, things can go wrong. One partner can gain the upper hand over the other. We can hurt ourselves, hurt physically, emotionally. When things go wrong, it can trigger trauma. All of these are risks that must be taken into account, like a waterfall. You don’t ask an actor to jump out of the window just by opening the window and say: “ jumped up ! “, It is not possible. We hire someone who will regulate, who will inform, who will help choreograph, who will support. It’s the same thing for intimate scenes.
What Skills Are Needed to Become an Intimacy Coordinator? ?
Today, there are training courses in Anglo-Saxon countries. These training courses include different modules such as working on consent, limits, choreography, how to facilitate communication, the representation of bodies on screen, etc.
For a long time, you were the first and only intimacy coordinator in France. How many there are today ?
Today in France, when we talk about intimacy coordinators who have really followed a real course, and not having improvised, there are three of them.
It’s a profession that comes from the United States. The term “ intimacy coordinator » was created in 2004, and in 2016 the first intimacy coordinator agency, Intimacy Directors International (IDI), was created, shortly before the #MeToo movement. Today, is France rather behind or ahead in Europe? ?
I’m not going to talk about delays, because it didn’t take 30 years to cross the Atlantic after all. Even in the United States and in Anglo-Saxon countries, even if it could have existed a little before the #MeToo movement, but in a very artisanal way, it was still the #MeToo movement which was a spotlight and a accelerator to awareness allowing this profession to exist today. Now it needs to develop in France.
Where things are most blocked today in France ?
In fact, I think there is still a lot of misunderstanding. Many directors do not know our profession and therefore will pose fantasies that are false. For example, when they have the impression that we are going to come and slow them down in their creativity, that we are going to cover up people. Many false ideas are conveyed about the profession and we still need to demonstrate pedagogy.
Who says #MeToo thinks of the Weinstein, Polanski, Christophe Ruggia (Adèle Haenel) or Depardieu affairs… With more intimacy coordinators in cinema or audiovisual, could we now avoid this type of scandal ?
The scandals and affairs you talk about are things that happened off set. But I think that today, hiring an intimacy coordinator is a strong sign from a producer who says: “ be careful, now, we work ethically and professionally, even the intimate scenes “. Perhaps, if we had instruments like that for a certain time, there are behaviors that we might have refrained from engaging in.
Today, in France, there are three intimacy coordinators. Is it a women’s job? ?
It’s not a gendered job. In France, there is no coordinator, but of course in the United States and England, there are. There are some very good intimacy coordinators.
► The website of Monia Aït El Hadj, first Intimacy Coordinator in France