My interest in the project was very pure, to film the light and the beauty of what they already established also in the concert. In a graphic way it’s showing the beauty of the set up. We made several takes of a chunk of songs and we repeat it. We are there because we make the music and what you hear is what we make, but visually we are not there.Īndre Chemetoff: It isn’t.

In the film I think you see us like maybe four times, we are really almost just an accent of this film. XdR: It’s really the machine that interests us. For us it’s almost like the human aspect of it has to be taken away. And it goes hand in hand with the idea of doing something close to sci-fi aesthetically, that is based on precision and not on the human mistake. But if we were to release the audio part of it or the visual part of it we want it to be a close to perfection as possible. It’s just that if we were completely alright with making mistakes and not being one hundred percent precise because that’s life and it’s almost impossible. So in this film the music is an actual live take but the control is happening more on the visual aspect of it. The idea of releasing Woman Worldwide was that we could control the precision of the music. This is the imprecision and you’re going to see something that is a bit unique although we try every time to do the same thing, we never really manage. And of course this is what people want to see when they see a live film. There will always be mistakes or if we play well there’s going to be something that doesn’t work with the set up. XdR: With playing live with both the music and also with what’s happening onstage, there’s too many parameters we can’t control and in this tour we never managed to play a show exactly how we wanted from beginning to the end. So we need it to be in a very controlled environment and obviously like to do and re-do the show as many times as needed. So it’s a bit hard to get a very objective and precise result. But the directors couldn’t really grab what we wanted from each event because most of them are busy filming the audience and missing what’s happening onstage. GA: We tried to film the show in proper live conditions in the venues or festivals. Why is that? What's your biggest interest in controlling the process? GF: With Woman Worldwide and Iris you’re purposely blurring the line between something that's live and the type of precision you're talking about. GA: It’s a coincidence but it’s Siri in reverse. XdR: For us the main idea of having a female name was to have something that sounds a bit like an artificial intelligence or computer that welcomes you onboard saying “Hello, I’m IRIS. GF: A bit like HAL from 2001 A Space Odyssey There is already a satellite named IRIS.Īnd also it’s like the goddess of Earth and the sky. And also it works as some sort of acronym of a NASA project. GASPARD AUGÉ: We wanted to have a female name, or the name of a woman because it made sense with the name of our tour and the name of our album.

GF: I assume it’s about “seeing” but what does the title IRIS refer to? Everything from the preparation to the editing and post production was ten times longer than that first film, because it had a different purpose. We called Andre, who we’ve known for ten years since he was the Director of Photography on our first video with Romain. We had in mind all these sci-fi movies like Blade Runner or Alien, and we wanted to film it with the precision of a NASA documentary, with very long and slow shots. This year we thought to film it with no audience and in the space that doesn't look like a concert venue. Since 2007 we’ve tried to find a way to film our live shows and we tried like so many times but it was never good. We just shot it, edited it, and then released it. There was a bit of preparation but not too much and all in all it was a short process. When we did the first one 10 years ago, it was Romain and So-Me just coming with handheld cameras and filming us doing the US tour for 3 weeks. The first one we did 10 years ago with Romain Gavras, it was a documentary, and this time it’s not a documentary, so both in the substance but also in the form itself they are very different. XAVIER DE ROSNAY: Well the type of film is completely different.

How is the experience different this time around? GREG FOLEY: This isn't your first time releasing a film.

Iris a space opera by justice