“The most intense environment in the real world”: A year after Cannes, Black Flies finally arrives in French cinemas

The fifth film by Jean-Stephane Sauvière (Johnny Mad Dog, A Prayer Before Dawn), Black Flies is an adaptation of the novel. 911 Shannon Burke, a former Harlem paramedic. This intense thriller stars Sean Penn and Tye Sheridan, alongside Katherine Waterston, Michael Pitt, Raquel Neve, Mike Tyson and Cally Reilly.

Black Flies tells the story of Ollie Cross (Ty Sheridan), a young paramedic from New York who teams up with Gene Rutkowski (Sean Penn), an experienced emergency room doctor. Faced with the violent reality of their daily lives, he discovers the risks of a job that daily shatters his convictions and leaves him restless.

A deep dive into the world of New York paramedics

Jean-Stephane Sauvière’s film, with a plot similar to Martin Scorsese’s Tomb Open, is very dark, with a suffocating rhythm and a deafening atmosphere with New York as the setting, a city that represents the character in its own way.

“New York is changing”– the director told us “The New York of the 80s and 90s, which you dreamed about through cinema, is in the process of gentrification and disappearance”. Jean-Stephane Sauvière wanted to capture the city at a time when everything was changing, and Shannon Burke’s book provided by the producers allowed him to capture this New York and tell the story of a complex character.

“This young paramedic, played by Tye Sheridan, confronts the poverty of New York and the social violence that affects him and feeds his dark side. He tries to find the light and save his life.

I loved this character’s journey because I found it allowed me to document New York very much, as Shannon experienced it as a paramedic in Harlem in the 90s, and the story of the character’s initial journey into darkness. But in constant search for light.”

Between the very graphic rescue scenes, with a heavy dose of hemoglobin and tight shots, and the present voice that tugs at the heart, Jean-Stephane Sauvaire wanted to give an experimental dimension to Black Flies, which does not spare the audience for two years. clocks:

“I really like experimental cinema to the extent that it immerses us in something else, that is, it also appeals to the unconscious, which is always there, in the wake. Sound also brings what images do. It can’t, that is, it really allows you to be physically in relationship with the screen and that it resonates in the body.

Because it’s also a film about bodies, and it’s about everyone’s relationship with their own bodies. So I was interested in the almost ambulance-patient relationship that happens between the audience and the actor, that we have this exchange, that the film becomes a great exchange to share that story.”

Tye Sheridan impresses in this shocking and intense thriller

Known for his roles in Tree of Life, Joe, X-Men and Ready Player One, Tye Sheridan impresses in Black Flies. “played the most fragile character” According to him:

“I think it really has the most intense real-world setting. As a young person, it’s hard to deal with your own trauma and the death of people close to you and carrying that crushing weight every day.

I am inexperienced in this field, I think it is too big. My character is overloaded and becoming fragile. In a way, the film works for him on a very psychological level. And it’s slowly kind of a downward spiral.”

We discover another side of Tye Sheridan in this intense and immersive drama that takes us through a grueling two-hour experience in the chaotic environment of New York’s paramedics and emergency workers. Unlike her previous roles, the 26-year-old actor delivers a striking and powerful performance.

To play this young medic, Tye Sheridan immersed himself in extreme training. With the film in production since 2018, Black Flies has been in the works for a long time. But this long wait allowed the actor to be effective on set:

We knew we had to look like real doctors in the film. So Sean and I trained for two and a half months before filming, shadowing real doctors, spending time in the classroom and practicing with them.

Since 2018, I have been going to New York with Jean-Stephane and doctors. So there was a lot of training involved and we had a lot of support from a lot of doctors in New York, including the team at Wykoff Hospital. We always had counselors on set when they were doing medical procedures. “

Comments collected by Megan Choquet on May 18, 2023 in Cannes.

Black Flies is currently in theaters.