French actress Juliette Binoche has revealed it was none other than the late Robert Redford who first told her to make her new film, In-I In Motion.
Binoche’s directorial debut, a feature documentary exploring the making of her 2008 dance theater show In-I with British dancer and choreographer Akram Khan, earns its world premiere at the San Sebastian Film Festival Saturday night. At the film’s press conference, the Oscar winner was recalling the moment that she was visited by actor-director and founder of Sundance, Redford, who died on Tuesday at the age of 89.
“We were in New York, it was the end of our show,” began Binoche. “I was still in my stage dress, and Robert Redford came to me, to my dressing room and he pulled me in and closed the door behind me and said: ‘You’ve got to make a film out of this piece. You have to do it,’ and he repeated it several times, with a lot of passion. I was a little surprised,” Binoche continued, “because I was in front of him, the great actor and director. So I said: ‘Yes, yes. I will, I will.’”
But Binoche didn’t know where to begin. The actress, known for her Academy Award-winning performance in The English Patient, and co-star Khan were coming into the project from separate fields — acting and dancing — and Binoche had never considered herself a dancer. The pair paused their respective careers to tour worldwide with In-I, working with acting coach Susan Batson and dancer Su-Man Hsu, and in her first foray into filmmaking, Binoche revisits the show, its risks and the transformation it brought about through unseen archival footage.
“Akram and myself, we’re very different,” she said, “different sex, different skin colors, different backgrounds, religions [and] form of expressing ourselves. Dance and acting are very diverse, but they can feed each other so well, so risking to show the back view, the upside down of the situation was dangerous.”
Binoche was slightly emotional as she discussed the physical toll that the 100-show tour took on her. “As you see in the film, I feel like I will never be able to go through it [again] because it’s so hard — you’re out of breath. Su-Man trained me every day, walking and running, and so after a while, the body is changing and gets the stamina… And when you feel that — when you go from zero to 10, let’s say, you feel like life is amazing.”
She discovered an ancient Chinese practice, Qi Gong, to help her through the physical transition. “I started hurting myself,” Binoche confessed, “I broke toes and my left knee started to hurt, so I had an acupuncturist… I really felt I had wonderful people around me in order to get through the show. But I have to say that every single night before I went on stage, I was trembling. I felt, ‘This is it. This time, I’m gonna be killed.’”
The actress was also questioned on her comments over the Israel-Gaza war and support for Palestine, including the open letter she signed last week calling for a boycott of the Israeli film industry following the mass loss of civilian lives in the Gaza Strip. Among the 4,000+ actors to have added their name to the letter are Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, Olivia Colman, Mark Ruffalo and Javier Bardem.
When asked if she feels frustrated that actors are forced to “speak out” more than politicians, Binoche responded: “I’m not sure the politicians are going to help and save us… I think arts can help finding ways of communication, [and] I believe in the spirit for connections and wanting to unite.”
“But it seems [we’re] in such a dark place at the moment,” she said, “I don’t know what we can do as actors — some are going there on boats, trying to find solutions. I don’t know about that, but I think we have to go into our creative side and believe in junctions of collaboration. That’s what my film is about… How do we find areas where we can have a common language?”
Binoche added: “At least actors are trying to find truth in what they’re doing. I don’t think politicians are doing that; they’re hiding.”
The San Sebastian International Film Festival 2025 runs Sept. 19-27.