Julien Hosmalin: “Without pity resembles the films that fascinated me in my youth”

This first feature features two fairground brothers who lead a quest for revenge following the childhood trauma of one of them. An intense thriller with assumed influences of which the filmmaker reveals behind the scenes

What made you want to make films?

Julien Hosmalin: The fact of having watched a lot of it! This is what pushed me to go to a film school in the south, ESRA, even though coming from a very modest background, it was a priori out of price for me. So I’m taking a huge risk by getting into this, I’m delivering pizzas to pay for my schooling. But, in the first year, I did very poorly, I didn’t feel like I belonged.

For what reason?

Because with my very mainstream cinematic culture, I don’t understand why, educationally, I am only shown and made to study black and white films which absolutely do not suit me. So I’m experiencing a catastrophic first year where I skip these classes that I pay dearly for to re-watch the films I love. I almost had to repeat a year but a teacher who understood me saved me and allowed me to move on to second year. There, they installed Apple editing benches with Final Cut in the school. And for me, that changes everything. Because the technique becomes accessible. So I’m spending my second year filming and editing my own work. And when, in my third year, I could no longer pay for my school, I decided to go to Paris and managed to get a permanent contract in one month to Music Mag. I accompany a journalist, I produce and edit his artist interviews. This led me to be spotted by a project manager at Polydor who offered me my first clip. Which I obviously accept. But when they asked me to move on, I declined because I wanted to make films. I’m writing my first medium-length film, Magic worldwhich I self-finance with a friend. And it will be my springboard because the film will be a hit at festivals and will notably allow me to meet Michael Kuperberg, the producer of Without pity.

When you embark on your first feature, you inevitably want to develop a thousand ideas. Why did this story, based on a childhood trauma that caused a family to implode, impose itself on you?

It emerged naturally. I understood very early on that making a first film would be a long journey, strewn with waiting, uncertainties and questioning. I come from a place where cinema is not present in the collective imagination, nor even considered as a possible horizon. So from the moment I decided to get into filmmaking, I knew it would take a long time. So I wanted to tell something deeply personal, a story capable of accompanying me over time. A subject that would never wear out, that I would still want to tell years later.

It will take eight years to bring this to life Without pity. How did you experience this long period of uncertainty?

I managed to hold on thanks to the editing. All this time, I was editing other people’s films. This is what allowed me to survive economically and artistically. There were very difficult periods, times when I was literally up against the wall. Decisions where everything seemed to be a coin toss. But I held on.

How personal is this story to you?

The trajectory of Dario that Adam Bessa portrays is not mine. What is personal is the theme. I have known people very close to me who have experienced this trauma linked to childhood sexual assault. This subject even haunted me at a very young age. And my mother, like my older brother, in a very educational way, showed me films to help me understand. We didn’t necessarily have the words, so we went through images. That’s how I discovered films like Mystic River Or Sleepers. Works have profoundly marked my way of looking at cinema and influenced Without pity like genre cinema. But if this film is personal, it is also because of my family environment. The funfair universe in which the story takes place results directly from this. Because with my big brother who took great care of me during my childhood, we lived in a caravan, opposite a funfair, in the south of France. Besides, I didn’t understand why we didn’t have a ride. And he simply replied: “Because we’re not like them.” » This proximity to this very luminous, almost magical universe, created something very strong in me. I always had the impression that it was a bit like home, without being completely home.

You have also chosen a very assertive staging which highlights this place to deal with this subject, which is nevertheless harsh and usually gives rise to films with more sober production…

Yes, because for me, cinema is an alternative to reality. You are right: in France, when we approach this kind of subject, we often opt for a very minimalist form: camera on the shoulder, natural light, unobtrusive staging, as a form of modesty. As a spectator, I can like that. But as a director, framing and projecting an image in 24 frames per second is not trivial and constitutes a powerful act. The artifices of cinema are not there to damage the subject, but to sublimate it. As long as you know how to use them correctly.

When writing, were you already thinking in images?

Yes, a lot. Too much perhaps even at first. I described a lot. And I realized that it was risky, especially for a first film. First readers don’t necessarily have the same visual references as me. Thanks to the screenwriters who accompanied me, I learned to refine. To get to the bone to give the reader a clear and structured story. Then my work as an editor helped me enormously. I understood that I would have neither the means nor the time to make the film I naively dreamed of. I had to be honest with myself. What really mattered were the characters. The links. Human trajectories. I didn’t want to make a labyrinthine film. I wanted to set a clear situation, almost like a bomb under the table, and observe how the characters would evolve. Too often I found myself editing films where the directors chased after the film they had dreamed of, instead of accepting the one they had actually shot. It’s a losing race. I didn’t want to go down that path.

And when do you think about casting?

We arrived at a first finalized version of the scenario after three years of work. It was from her that I started thinking about casting. We offered it to established actors and we only got negative feedback. Which I totally understand: it’s my first feature, the theme is super dark and they don’t spontaneously trust someone without experience. So, I started rewriting again, feeding off feedback. And a year later, with a new version, I managed to find my two main performers and then a distributor. So all the lights are green… until COVID. There, we take two years in sight and I lose my two actors…

How did Adam Bessa and Tewfik Jallab get involved in this adventure?

For Tewfik, I owe it to Nassim Lyes, an actor who had appeared in a film financed by my producer and who directed me towards him. He advises me to watch the series Oussekine and suddenly it’s obvious. I therefore propose to him in the role of Rayan, Dario’s great film which sees him re-emerge twenty years after this tragedy which the latter has always kept silent, upon the death of their mother. And two weeks later, Tewfik not only tells me OK but also that he knows that I’m going to struggle to finance and that he will always be there. He kept his word! And the same thing happened with Adam Bessa. I met him because mutual friends put us in touch. He had just won the Un Certain Regard acting prize at Cannes for Harka. And beyond the incredible actor that he is, I immediately connected with him on a human level, on common values. We had the same desire: to make a film that would resemble those that made us dream of in our youth. I was really extraordinarily lucky that both of them trusted me. And on set, they are totally complementary. For Adam, the game involves a great interiority. With Tewfik, technique is at the heart of its interpretation.

Do you already have a next film in mind?

Yes, I am working on the adaptation of Henri Lœvenbruck’s book, We just dreamed of freedom about a group of four friends in life and in death. And I start casting at the end of the month

Without pity. By Julien Hosmalin. With Adam Bessa, Tewfik Jallab, Jonathan Turnbull… Duration 1h35. Released January 14, 2026