Fanny Ardant, the courage to love at 70

You can love at the age of seventy if you "Have courage. To be afraid to love and how to put an end to your life, while you have to take your own risks and decide what kind of life you want to have". Word of Fanny Ardant, protagonist of THE YOUNG LOVERS passed today in the official selection at the Rome Festival, a provocative title because the lovers we are talking about lack youth. In fact, the 70-year-old Shauna (Ardant), a retired architect who has long since renounced any emotional involvement, and Pierre (Melvil Poupaud), a 45-year-old doctor happily married and father of a family, fall in love in the film. The fact is that he still sees her as an attractive woman enough to put his family life in crisis and it soon falls apart. And while Shauna still struggles with the emotions she believed belonged to the past,she also discovers that she has fallen ill with a degenerative disease that guarantees him a short life in conscience, but their love still seems really hard to die. "What I liked about the film was when my character still doesn't quite understand what is happening to him," said Ardant today in Rome. "Knowing if you are really in love, fighting for this idea and then finally diving in. Even when my character gets sick - continued the 72-year-old actress - and wants to give up, stop, there is no fa. Love is stronger than her ". Talking about a love beyond the more or less canonical age, says the director: "It was like breaking a taboo. Love can happen even at 75 and something we see every day". And again Ardant: "Everyone in the end expects to love.And love will always be talked about. But when we start talking about glory and power then it is the end also because there is very little to say about these things. "One of today's problems then explains the actress:" It is the fact that you only think about the body, what matters seems to be only the sexual part which is certainly not the most important. "The freedom to love?" I have always thought that freedom to love is not given, but is taken. A woman who truly loves is going to get her love. "The choice to make this film difficult?" I initially thought not to do it. I thought you were forced to do scenes that even as a young man I never allowed myself, but then I realized that the spirit of THE YOUNG LOVERS was different. "The choice of roles?"In this I am not a professional actress because I have always only done parts that I liked. I can also do roles that audiences hate, as long as I like them. "As for gender equality in cinema, the actress has her reservations:" When I happened to work with Trintignant's wife, Nadine, who directed me in a movie, NEXT SUMMER, everyone was there asking me what it was like to be directed by a woman. I find this judging according to genres stupid and restrictive. "Truffaut's most beautiful film?" The lady next door because you can die of love, there is no accommodation like in Romeo and Juliet. "Finally, as regards cosmetic surgery says she has never used it: "It's a personal matter.When I looked at other people who have undergone surgery I have to say I didn't like what I saw. Better to let it go, you are thirty once. "