“Now my guide was not the dialogue, my guide was the character-driven emotions,” the director said.
As a veteran documentary filmmaker, Duval also said he brought a lot of documentary techniques to shooting a fictional story.
Duval said he felt a deep personal connection to the film’s script, written by Marie Vien, the adoptive mother of two girls, one from China and one from Vietnam. In fact, he was hooked after reading a one-page description of the story.
“I would say I am first a father, of two young boys, and also my sister adopted a little boy from China 15 years ago,” Duval said. “I was very engaged in that story, and I was very touched by this quest of Isabelle. There were a lot of levels and layers in that story.”