Khalil Cherti: “I came to cinema as an autodidact and very late”

Guest of our show Entree des artistes with his co-writer Simon Serna, the director looked back on his journey up to Ce qui nous lead à toi, a magnificent first feature about a couple engaged in a PMA journey.

Double rewarded at the Angoulême French-speaking film festival (Valois for screenplay and student jury), Which leads us to you depicts the long and painful PMA journey of a couple who want more than anything to have a child.

Guest of our show Entree des artistes this week with his co-writer Simon Serna, director Khalil Cherti looked back on his relationship with cinema and his long journey until signing this first feature film.

“ I am French-Moroccan. I lived part of my life on the other side of the Mediterranean before returning to Rabat every summer. In this city, there was a cinema Le Colisée with two screenings: an international film and a Bollywood film. And in the first session there was often a Bruce Lee. We cheated to get in as a group and had fun making sound effects for the scenes where he fought. And what struck me in The Game of Death And Big Bossis that there was something tragic about Bruce Lee. An inner drama that played out every time »

But Khalil Cherti took a while to imagine himself one day going behind the mirror, behind the camera, to become a director.

“ My awareness of what cinema represented came very late. Until the age of 22, my only relationship to culture was to participate in lots of associations and organize meetings, concerts… And then, one day a friend suggested I make a short film. I started, I loved this experience and I immediately discovered the institutional film sector. It becomes my school, in which I will familiarize myself with all the positions: directing of course but also production, editing… It has partly cured my imposture syndrome. Because for a long time, when I started to imagine myself making a feature film, I didn’t see what I could add to everything that had been done. Going through craftsmanship saved me. Be aware that I am not a genius, that I am not one of those who will revolutionize cinema… but as a craftsman, I can progress »

Khalil Cherti will direct two short films: Kiss you on honey in 2021 then Jordan in 2025. Before embarking on writing his first feature, in duo with Simon Serna who told us about this meeting

“Khalil comes to me for an adaptation of a novel. And, quite quickly, we realize that we won’t make this film but that we really want to make another one. Khalil then offers me several synopses. Then makes me read a more advanced sequencer for which there is room for a co-writer. That of Which leads us to you. I start reading it in the car with my partner at the wheel. And there, something runs through me right through. Because this story of PMA, without being my personal story – since at that time I already had a child – it is the story of my partner, who is one of the first children born by IVF at the end of the 80s. It was impossible for me not to make this film. »

WHAT LEADS US TO YOU: A WONDERFUL ACTING DUO (REVIEW)

This film – magnificently performed by Nina Meurisse and Sofia Khammes – is however not the story of Khalil Cherti either. But it was inspired by friends.

“At this time, I am surrounded by very close couples who are going through this PMA journey. And I see the impact it has on their bodies, their relationships. They suddenly talk to me about themselves in a place they would never have talked to me about if they weren’t on this quest. They give me access to unprecedented intimacy. It made me want to develop Which leads us to you by filming them as heroes. To make it an intimate epic. »

Which leads us to you By Khalil Cherti. With Nina Meurisse, Sofian Khammes, Jeanne Balibar… Duration: 1h36. Released November 11, 2026