On Sunday, Nov 22, “This Is Comedy” was screened at the No.1 Hall of NTT CRED Hall. A talk show by Mr. Jacky Goldberg who directed this film was held after the screening.

“This Is Comedy” (2014, in France) is a 60 minute documentary movie about Mr. Judd Apatow who is popular as a director of comedy movies and also a producer.

Mr. Goldberg has been writing in the French cultural weekly “Les Inrockuptibles” for five years, mostly about American cinema. He has also created a movie club in Paris called the ‘Thursday Night Live’, dedicated to this matter. He has directed four short movies, selected in Cannes or Locarno, and has produced a documentary, “Golden Slumbers”, directed by Davy Chou, about the golden age of Cambodian cinema in the 　‘60s. The film was released in France in September of 2012. He is currently working on a fiction feature film.
In the talk show, Mr. Goldberg said, ‘I appreciate that my film was seen in Japan. The films of Mr. Apatow are popular in America, but they are not in other countries and have less audiences. So I decided to shoot this movie and introduce the fascination of Mr. Apatow to France.’
He also said, ‘I was moved by the films of Mr. Apatow and had been writing about his works. The documentary films of mine are an extension of that work. I wanted everyone to know his works rather than to introduce his character. I feel empathy with his humor or way of thinking a lot. So I thought analyzing and introducing his works are the same thing as showing my personality.’
About the location in America, he said, ”It was hard. I planned it for 1 month and went there with 4 crews, but we were at a loss at the beginning because we couldn’t tape any interviews. What we have to do first is being credited by Mr. Apatow, however, he is not diplomatic as many of the other American producers, but does a lot of worrying.”

After showing our movies that I’ve shot, he showed understanding and we could be accredited by him. Since then, everything was going well. We were trying to interview many notables of Hollywood and they refused to be interviewed, but if Mr. Apatow talked to them, then they accepted it without any fuss. After that, our shooting finished in 1 week.’
He says Mr. Apatow looked very glad after seeing this film made by him. The same as Woody Allen’s, films would be a hit after being accepted in France, that’s because it is thought that the prestige is in France. Now, Mr. Apatow is making an effort to discover young producers and trying help female producers become more popular.