A New York-style loft for a film director duo in the heart of Paris  

I started off at business school but quickly got bored. Later on, at the end of the nineties, I helped create the first major French websites. I then launched an online trading start-up that was later sold to Vivendi. Before I felt the need to return to my first passion - film. So I went to study in London and short short films in London and New York, just before I met Lola.

I get the impression that many people working in film from our generation started out doing something else, invariably so they had a backup plan in case things didn't work out. I started out studying literature after secondary school with an option in maths - because I didn't really know what direction to take (laughs). I then found a preparatory course in film, but in Lille because in Paris everyone expected me to have a first-year in film studies. Following that I went on an Erasmus scheme to London to get the practical experience I needed. When I met Ruben,  he told me about  schools in the USA that offered fast-track courses which were practical as they weren't degrees - you could pick and choose the courses. So I took a year out to take highly-technical courses in New York. At the same time, we did the film festival tour with Checkpoint, our short film and watched lots of independent American films that were shot on a shoestring. We also met loads of film crews and actors. And subsequently asked ourselves "Why don't we take the plunge?". One morning, Ruben said to me, "C'mon, let's go for it, let's make a full-length film". And so we did! We had three months left in New York!Because we knew I had to get back to Paris to finish my studies. We shot in our flat, the city, we knocked on doors to find people who wanted to take part. The idea was to fully involve the actors in the creative process, which included a lot of improvisation. And I took part which launched my acting career, which wasn't something I'd previously factored in. And that's how I ended up in an Australian series and independent films in New York and Paris.

There are lots of well-known directors who do the same thing as us, like Sean Baker who's just won the Palme d'or as well as the Safdie brothers.

Lena Dunham too, before she hit the big time with the series Girls. It's how it seems to work. Doing this and that when you have great ideas but no funding.

But lots of things changed between our first and second American films. The arrival of Netflix and other studios was a game-changer: everyone had work, and there were lots of series and productions. So there was a lack of manpower when filming small, independent films The DIY approach was gradually disappearing.

In France we're lucky to have - for the time being - a fantastic funding system thanks to public channels, the French CNC, and regional help. You won't find this in the USA, where there's only private funding and virtually no distribution chain. The downside in France is that sorting out funding takes a lot of time. You need to prepare lengthy applications. The applications are put to a jury several times, meaning the scenario may no longer be relevant or in tune with what we want to say, there's less spontaneity. The other problem with the French film industry is that it's a small world, everyone knows each other, and it's all very insider.Right now, there's a lot of talk about sexual and gender-based violence, but we haven't yet reached the stage where we can speak out about psychological harassment and abuse of power. 

It's often a David and Goliath scenario, people are too scared to talk in case they lose work - just like victims of sexual violence. There's a code of silence, and power play. You need to surround yourself with good people, build a professional family.

Yes, Les Films de la Fusée. We produce lots of films for other directors and quite a lot of ads in the USA.

I grew up in the south of France. My mother's from Tunisia and my father from Morocco, and they met in Montpellier. So we're very much a Mediterranean family!

When I met Ruben, he'd left Montpellier but his mother and grandmother still lived in their lovely family flat! I remember the old-fashion bathtubs.

It was typical of the decadent interiors of big, penniless families: large and all living under one roof surrounded by castle-style wall hangings. It was a very... cinematic decor! So I grew up in an interior decorated with everything my grandmother had brought over from Tunisia. She often scoured antique shops, she loved 18th-century furniture. In a nutshell, it was a very eclectic interior.

The flat was sold when your grandmother passed away. It was a shame as no one wanted to deal with all the furniture and objects. Some time later, it caught fire. When there'd never been a problem in fifty years...

It was as if it was all meant to go up in smoke.

As for me, I grew up in Paris. I moved to Lille when I was 19. Also, my parents split up. I come from a Tunisian and Italian background. Plus part of my family moved back to Italy. Which is where my love of good food comes from! (Laughs) My maternal grandfather was a lover of all fine things, and we were very close. You could say an artist at heart. In the 80s, before I was born, he had a furniture shop that sold 1950s pieces, which wasn't à la mode back then. It was ahead of its time, so it didn't do well. He had quite a fanciful life. He came from a big but impoverished Italian family that lived in Tunisia. My maternal grandmother was also from a very poor Italian family. She went to the school prom in a dress her mother made from curtains because they couldn't afford to buy one. And that was where she met my grandfather who told her she looked awful! (Laughs) Go figure, the moment he said that, she told herself he'd end up marrying her and that's exactly what happened.

You haven't described your father's flat, which is important as he's spent 50 years living in empty flats surrounded by piled-up cardboard boxes. Nothing, except for a lovely leather armchair.

Since he grew up in Tunisia and arrived in Paris after his baccalaureate, he fantasized a bit about that side of Paris, about Saint-Germain. And he's always lived like that. Actually, he's now got a new flat that he wants me to furnish. Because he wants to, but just isn't capable! It's a project close to my heart, I've done it for several friends. Maybe one day I'll turn it into a job...

We'd just got back from New York. We didn't want a typical Parisian Haussmann-style flat; we had that before in Paris. We wanted a lot of space and light, like a loft.

But it didn't look at all like this when we arrived! It needed a lot of work. At the same time, the lack of load-bearing walls meant we could do what we liked...

The previous owners were a couple with two kids. They had three bedrooms with mezzanines everywhere and a small raised TV room. The walls were fuchsia and orange. A long corridor also took up loads of space. The beams were hidden. The brickwork too. But oddly enough we fell for it. Sunlight poured it, it was lovely and bright. I thought he'd hate it. But he felt the same as me. We got downstairs, looked at each other and quickly went back up and made an offer. We'd already seen three or four flats, some of which we missed out on. So we said that if we liked this one, we needed to go for it. After that, we decided to start with a blank canvas and carry out major works.  Before doing any work, we camped here to get a feel for the place and imagine what we could do. We marked out the partition walls on the floor.

And then it just evolved. 16 months ago, we didn't have a bedroom for our son. It was open-plan, there was nothing there. It was part of the living room, a little office area. We had a glass divider designed, and we finished the work just before he was born!

We thought about it a lot. In our old flat, we had very 50s and 60s look. Here we wanted more of a 20s-30s look, an Art Deco style. And soothing pastel colours. We love the industrial feel, which you can see in the metal beams and brick wall, but we wanted to add warmth with wood and more “country house” elements, like the farm table, workbench and old paintings. We like to mix genres and eras, and push the boundaries.

Yes in French second-hand shops and when we travel, and from Selency too. We love it, but we've stopped for now as we've got too much stuff. We increasingly feel the need to declutter, to just keep the basics. And go for neutral colours.

Like our white sofa. Which is fine just as it is!

We had cushions on it before. In the end, I felt it looked better on its own. And there've been changes since our baby arrived. Meaning we didn't have any pictures up, they were all leaning against the walls. Plus we've had different ideas emerge, perhaps more design pieces, travertine tiling, less wood... We're going to change our bedroom, use lime plaster, something more mineral. Which would fit in with the bathroom's polished concrete, for example. We designed everything, the worktop, the storage... and, notably, the recesses around the flat, the integrated laundry baskets with shell handles set into the base of the raised bath. One for dirty washing, one for stuff to be ironed. It's a bit OCD, I know... My dream right now is to have a separate laundry room where I can dry stuff. Now we've got a baby we do a lot of washing (laughs).