This year marks the silver anniversary of French film producer David Thion, who made his debut with Emmanuel Mouret’s Laissons Lucie Faire! in 2000. As a key figure at Les Films Pelléas, Thion has cultivated enduring creative collaborations with acclaimed auteurs such as Mia Hansen-Løve, Serge Bozon, Christophe Honoré, Justine Triet, and Guillaume Senez. His work has become a staple at major film festivals, including Cannes, where his most celebrated film to date, Anatomy of a Fall, not only landed the Palme d’Or but also rode its success all the way to the Oscars.
In a lengthy conversation at the 2024 Marrakech International Film Festival—where Karim Moussaoui’s The Vanishing premiered, marking Thion’s second collaboration with the Algerian filmmaker following Until the Birds Return in 2017—we discussed his career milestones, his experiences as a producer championing artistic visions, and what it looks like to be in the trenches (in a foreign country as well with Senez’s Tokyo-shot A Missing Part) but also what it feels like to push talent in-between projects. Looking ahead, Thion has an exciting slate of projects, including Hansen-Løve’s first English-language film, If Love Should Die, Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet (La vie d’une femme) set to star Léa Drucker, and Elie Grappe’s next feature.
