Maxime Durant: ‘You can have hundreds of lives, cats are amateurs’

Filmmaker Maxime Durand tells all in our Q&A

Maxime Durand
Maxime Durand

Maxime Durand is an independent filmmaker from France and England, residing in Malta for the past eight years. He has made 50 independent short films since he started filming in the one-manned guerrilla style 20 years ago and kept this method to this day. Durand has been part of the entertainment industry in Malta since 2014 in various departments and participated in over 60 projects.

What’s the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning?

Wondering what year it is.

What is the best advice you’ve ever received?

“Get your camera out and start filming something, anything.” Even though it was after I started getting my camera out. So maybe it’s my uncle sharing the unfailing secret way to tie shoelaces... I’m sure you are all still doing it wrong.

What do you never leave the house without?

Clothes. Although there was this one time...

Pick three words that describe yourself

Crafty. Tormented. Heartful. Know-it-all. Bad-at-math.

What do you consider to be your greatest achievement?

My bucket list.

What is your guiltiest pleasure?

Crisps. Flavoured ones of course, I’m not an animal.

What is the most important lesson life has taught you?

You can have hundreds of lives, cats are amateurs.

Property and cars aside what’s the most expensive thing you’ve ever bought?

Eye surgery. It’s like buying a bran new life camera, best decision of my life. But the zoom is not great.

What is one thing you wish you knew when you were younger?

That everything is just dust dancing in the void, nothing really matters. Bye bye pressure!

Who’s your inspiration?

Everybody. But my family and friends back home started it.

What has been your biggest challenge?

My web series “Coming Soon”. Also that flute test 23 years ago. I mean, why did I even have to go through it?!

If you weren’t a filmmaker what would you be doing?

Drumming.

Do you believe in God?

I don’t. Sometimes I feel a pantheist but usually turns out just to be wishful thinking.

If you could have dinner with any person, dead or alive, who would it be?

Freud. I have many burning questions about his parents at the risk of our appetite. And if I can’t handle it, then George Méliès, of course. I’d rather meet a dead person, they can actually talk about death... how interesting is that?

What’s your worst habit?

Crisps. But at least it’s the flavoured ones.

What are you like when you’re drunk?

I’m with a much worsened memory and focus, which is already not that amazing when sober. But I’m also a big fan of dogs... sorry what was the question?

Who would you have play you in a film?

Christian Bale, I don’t see anybody else able to pull off my weird accent. Or a regular Mexican janitor, because I played a Mexican janitor in a film once, so it’s only fair.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Greed.

What music would you have played at your funeral?

“La Ritournelle” from Sebastien Tellier (his 2010 Olympia Live version preferably).

What is your most treasured material possession?

My laptop. With it I communicate, watch movies, get informed, write and edit my films, and point out in my answer here how to destroy me to any ill-motivated thieve out there.

What is your earliest memory?

Falling down stairs in my house when I was three. I believe that triggered my love for stunts.

When did you last cry, and why?

A movie last week. How stereotypical.

Who would you most like to meet?

Alain Chabat, a French actor, writer and director. He came to the island to direct “Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatre”, but it was in 2001, I wasn’t here. It’s more likely to meet “movie idols” in Malta than in their original countries.

What’s your favourite food?

A properly made BLT.

Who’s your favourite person on social media right now?

Climate Crisis. Big influencer. Not many followers.

If you could travel in time, where would you go?

The 60’s, it was such an explosion of happenings and revolutions often undervalued.

What book are you reading right now?

Not much of a book person.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

To find the alternative to capitalism. Or depression.

What’s one thing you want to do before you die?

I think I have “hot air balloon tour” left on my bucket list.

What music are you listening to at the moment?

I’m going through a period of classicals revisited as epic movie trailer soundtracks. I think I might be running out of choices.

In the shower or when you’re working out, what do you sing/listen to?

Funk or Disco. Or Hip Hop, or Rock, or ... dogs, sorry what was the question again?