Wilfrid Brimo

Bread. Polish. Horn. Kissing. Toast. Windows. Fries. Knickers. Dressing. Cricket. Letter. Doors… A très bien impressed Belinda Archer proposes one further addition to the list of all great things French

It's Friday evening, the snow is falling and I'm cosily seated in front of a roaring log fire in the heart of Méribel. Opposite me is a Serge Gainsbourg lookalike, all scruffy hair, French cigarettes and head-to-toe denim. He oozes Gallic charm. "Hello, Belinda," he says in his gorgeous French accent. "How delightful to meet you."

The man in question is Wilfrid Brimo, darling of the French - and increasingly the worldwide - directing scene. He is in town partly because of the pre-Christmas advertising festival, but mainly because of shots. "We've come specially for you," he grins, nonchalantly sipping from a large glass of white wine. Oh, go on then, I believe you. Who wouldn't?

"I don't think I have a particularly French look. That's why English people are wanting me to pitch for them. I want to be an English director!"
Brimo is the director behind some fabulous work that cuts the moutard globally as much as in his native France. For AIDS awareness he shot the Live Long Enough to Find The Right One gay guy and girl cartoons that have won at Cannes. He shot the BETC/Euro RSCG Peugeot films with the pigeon wiping its crap off the car roof and the sheep polishing the doors with its fleece. He also made the Discovery Channel Shark Month spot with the calorie counters ticking away above the human beings on a beach. In short, his work has humour, emotion, strong performances, even some impressive CGI. A bit of everything, in fact.

"Yes, I don't think it would be accurate to say that I have a particular style," he says, reaching for his glass. "I prefer to have a variety of styles."

This Frenchman originally broke onto the advertising scene at Cannes 2003 with his very first film, no less - an accomplished vignette-style spot for the Paris World Athletics Championships in which the world pole-vault record was illustrated via a series of piled-up objects such as cardboard crates, phone boxes and cars. That debut commercial landed him a silver Lion. And lots of attention.

"When I did the Championships ad everyone wanted to see me. Then they decided I was too graphic, and I had to prove I could work with actors and do emotion," he recalls. So he did, extending his reel to include ads that encompassed almost every possible genre. Brimo was so successful at doing this that he is now ranked as one of France's top directors and has been officially judged their Number One for two years running by national advertising title CB News.

Born of Italian and Spanish parentage, Brimo grew up in the posh Parisian suburb of Versailles, where he is based to this day with his wife and four-year-old twin sons, Ethan and Eliott. Now 38, he began his career in design, interestingly attending Penninghen, the same art school as directing contemporary Antoine Bardou-Jacquet.
"It is important for me to tell stories and create emotion. Too many commercials have nice pictures and images, but you've got to put yourself in the place of the audience and tell a story."Upon finishing his studies, he worked briefly as an art director for a magazine but after four months chilling in Martinique in the Caribbean he came back and started creating onscreen idents for TV channels such as Canal+ and MTV. Around this time, in 2000, he was spotted by Patrick Barbier, the founder of Wanda Productions in Paris, and was invited to sign to the company, firstly in the same capacity doing TV idents but very soon afterwards as a commercials director. "The director of a shoot suddenly fell out two days before, and I was told to take over," he remembers of his first ever directing job.

"I was really thrown in at the deep end. It was in South Africa and I was a little bit terrified." That, of course, is history, and his reel now reflects an accomplished directing talent with an original eye and a light, elegant touch.

So does Brimo think of himself as a typically French director? "No, I don't think so at all," he says, with an undeniably Gallic shrug. "I don't think I have a particularly French look. That's why English people are wanting me to pitch for them. I want to be an English director!" he jokes.

If there is anything common to all his work, however, it is that it has heart. His Wanda producer, Willy Morence, who is sitting with us beside the fire, nods vigorously in agreement. "Wilf is always talking about emotion. For him, it is the magic word."

"It is important for me to tell stories and create emotion," Brimo continues. "Too many commercials have nice pictures and images, but you've got to put yourself in the place of the audience and tell a story." Leaning forward, he continues conspiratorially: "I must tell you about my grandmother. Every time she tells me something is good, I win a Lion at Cannes. And she only ever talks about the story or the message, never the look. She is my best judge."

"In France they are a little bit snobbish and they want only the very best directors, while in England they are not. They are prepared to take a chance."Increasingly this French talent is finding himself being asked, via his London production company ASD Lionheart, to pitch for UK jobs - coming up against the likes of Tony Kaye, "Alix Roooterfoord" (aka Alex Rutherford, I realise, after much confusion) and Rob Sanders. He has yet to convert one of these but it can only be a matter of time - and he is most excited about his latest pitch, for the new Halifax spot starring "Owood" (the homegrown Halifax star, Howard).

"I almost got the Halifax job that Tony Kaye got last year," he recalls, clearly excited at the prospect of a big-budget UK commercial. "Around 95 per cent of my work at the moment is French. It is a new experience for me to work with English people and Americans. It is very hard to adjust my schedule because I am very booked up in France, but it is difficult for me to work on fresh projects in France, and I am keen to get experience in other countries."

Ah so now we move on to the thorny subject of French creativity, highlighted by Saatchi & Saatchi worldwide CEO Kevin Roberts at the Méribel Festival in December last year as formulaic and generally uninspiring. Would Brimo agree? "We don't need to talk about French advertising," he says with a twinkle. "There's just lots of directors here so you have to fight hard for the best ads. In France they are a little bit snobbish and they want only the very best directors, while in England they are not. They are prepared to take a chance."

ASD Lionheart, to whom he signed just a year ago (after a brief six-month spell with Academy), are convinced he will do well in the UK. Nick Sutherland-Dodd, executive producer at ASD, says: "I had been aware of Wilfrid's work from judging the shots/cfp-e young directors award in Cannes in 2004, at which I fought strongly to get his World Championships film the first prize. He ended up getting second place, which was a travesty in my mind."

ASD approached Brimo at the time but he already had representation so they just kept in contact. They met up again the following year, in 2005, when he had won the gold Lion for his first animated AIDES film, featuring the girl, and that, coupled with his already great-looking live-action reel, made him "a very interesting director indeed", says Sutherland-Dodd.

"The thing you see through all Wilfrid's work is the humanity and attention to detail," he goes on. "Wilfrid works so hard on his films. He will do very well in the UK market and is already competing alongside the very best. His is one of the reels creatives and producers always want to keep."

Brimo says in return: "I'm like a child and I want to work because it is my passion. I never did anything at Academy. People always wanted Jonathan Glazer and Frédéric Planchon, who speaks English very well. I prefer to work for a small company that believes in me, and Arden Sutherland-Dodd are very rock and roll. It is very rock and roll of them to work with a French director who can't speak English very well. They love me, and, of course, I love them."

So what next from this denim-clad Gallic powerhouse, apart from a possible Halifax blockbuster? There is a feature some way down the line (idea and script not yet in even pre-embryonic stage), there is a big CGI film for sports retailer Decathlon featuring a famous skier and some nifty helicopter work ("My first helicopter job", he grins excitedly), and then there is another AIDES film. But he refuses to reveal the storyline. "Everyone thinks it must feature animals, because we have had every other sort of combination, but it doesn't," he says. "It will be very different, with not the same endline. It will be another four months work, for two and a half minutes, but it will be the best."

Certainly whatever Brimo films in future is bound to look fantastic and connect on a human level. For this particular French director displays all the flair and verve and, indeed, emotion that the very best of his Gallic compatriots are capable of displaying. And his English is not bad at all. Quite charmant, in fact. We Anglo Saxons should be giving him heaps of work, vraiment we should.