Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 

As the last guest of this year's festival to do so, Isaach De Bankolé held a discussion this afternoon with fans. The French actor born in the Ivory Coast accompanied Jim Jarmusch's latest film, The Limits of Control, to Karlovy Vary.

The actor, known from other Jarmusch films, was cast by the American director for the fourth time, here as a lone, nameless man traveling around Spain. "We really enjoyed the shooting, even though we were constantly at it from morning till night, and not chronologically," the actor related at his Master Class. The minimalist film had just a short script, which according to De Bankolé allowed the film to gain from external suggestions and coincidences. Because his character speaks little, the actor had to rely on other means of expression. "I had to be full of emotion in order to react just with my facial expressions. Although at the theater you only concentrate for two hours, during the shooting you have to concentrate for two months so that you'll have all the emotions inside you and be prepared whenever the director says action."

Besides Jarmusch or Claire Denis, with whom he regularly works, De Bankolé has also appeared in big-budget projects like Casino Royale and Miami Vice. "It's all the same work, but the difference is in the approach. Studio projects are more careful because to them it's mainly about business. I'm not interested in that; I don't need to have ten houses. It's more important to me who I'm going to work with," says the actor, who doesn't want to become a star. "I want to live a simple life, not so I'll need ten bodyguards at festivals and not be able to have a coffee where I want."

In two weeks, the actor will be heading to the Central African Republic to shoot a film about an American musicologist recording the music of the Pygmies. "It's a story about a musicologist who I personally met because he's a friend of Jim Jarmusch’s," remarked De Bankolé. Similar coincidences and encounters have accompanied his entire career, evidenced by this year's Karlovy Vary guest list: Patrice Chéreau directed the actor at the beginning of his theater career, and he recently shot a new film with Isabelle Huppert.

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