Behind the Scenes: The Lady Does Not Vanish

The British film director's works served as inspiration for Sacha Goldberger's complex project, The Lady Does not Vanish. Based on key scenes taken from Hitchcock's films, Goldberger reveals how gender roles have changed. With his images, he offers the viewer the chance to question their own understanding of the roles of men and women. Goldberger spoke with us about the preparations and the realisation of his elaborate project. 

LFI: Where did you shoot the series The Lady Does not Vanish? Please let us know how you chose the studio and the landscape locations; how did you find them?
Sacha Goldberger: We shot 12 sets in the studio. We spent several weeks scouting. For North by Northwest we had to do a casting for corn cobs; if you look closely at the photo, you'll see that they were planted identical to the film. The results of the series are surprising, the sets very similar, even though, at the end of the day, it is the human relationships that interest us in this series.

When and where was the series produced, how long was the production time?
After one year of preparation, we began with the production in October 2021, which lasted until May 2022. Eight months of creation of sets, of shooting indoors in the studio, in natural settings, in numerous different locations. Thanks to Pascal Batteux of Kellipse, we recreated certain original decors in the studio. Practically all the exterior sets were created on the island of Batz. This project is similar to a super cinema production.

There are often 50 to 150 people involved in your projects. How many people took part this time?
We had a light production for this The Lady Does not Vanish series. I asked my mother not to come with her friends, and my team not to bring their children. I think that 65 people worked on this project. That's already not bad. For the record, some of the team asked me if they could bring their dogs to the island of Batz during the ten days of shoot... We ended up with five dogs and two cats, almost like a zoo (laughs).

Please give us some insight into the team you worked with.
You have to have a very good producer, my wife Lina Pestana, to put together the team for this kind of project. We worked with a casting director, a make-up artist, a number of period hairstylists, a clothes stylist, a deco stylist, a team of builders for the studio sets, a team of model makers, a production team, various lighting assistants and digital operators. Numerous actors also participated in this project. 

The production seems to have been quite costly.
The sets, the decoration, the costumes, the equipment, the retouching work, the logistics... The whole thing put together represents around 150 000 euros.