Love Tomorrow: A Q&A with Christopher Payne, Cindy Jourdain and Arionel Vargas

After the UK premiere of Love Tomorrow at Sadler’s Wells Theatre last Wednesday, director Christopher Payne joined ballet stars Cindy Jourdain and Arionel Vargas for a Q&A session with the audience. The film utilises traditional cinematic tropes and subverts them with unorthodox filming techniques and terpsichorean vignettes. Payne and his stars sought to articulate their reasons for approaching the film in this way and discussed the challenge of entering unchartered waters in cinema.

When asked why he had made Love Tomorrow (and more specifically, why he had used the medium of dance throughout the film) Payne explained that it had always been his vision to make a film where a woman becomes estranged from her lover, but who finds stability and solace in the kindness of a stranger. Regarding dance, he intimated that he had experienced a memorable cathartic moment watching a contemporary dance performance, and had therefore decided to make his film with dancers and dance rather than with actors and acting.

Payne was already familiar with Sadler’s Wells and felt that as it is one of the world’s leading dance houses, he would find the support and funding that he needed from this renowned organisation. He believed that traditional film production companies would perhaps be inclined to focus upon the infamous hysteria and scandals surrounding ballet: the eating disorders, the competitiveness, the bitchiness – rather than its inherent beauty.

In a way, the film’s main duo reflects the actors (who share professions and nationalities with their characters). When asked how the two novices were able to get into their roles, both Vargas and Jourdain stated that besides the obvious similarities between themselves and the characters they play, they were able to draw upon comparable experiences of personal struggles.

Throughout the discussion, Payne went to great lengths to emphasise that the film had been made in tandem with the choreography and musical composition – rather than tackling these elements in post-production. It is clear that Love Tomorrow is a project that aims to fuse the distinctive artistic forms of cinema, dance and music.

Guy de Vito

Love Tomorrow was released in selected cinemas on 8^th November 2013.

Read our review of Love Tomorrow here.

Watch the trailer for Love Tomorrow here: