La Rochelle Fiction Festival 2025: Seriously, can you imagine a cinematic masterpiece without music?

Often unknown to the general public, in the shadow of directors and producers, film music composers are the guarantors of emotion on screen and are seen as resistance fighters in the face of the advent of artificial intelligence.

There are film scores that leave their mark. Sometimes to the point of immersing us in the world of the work simply by hearing a few notes. Sometimes we might even know the music without having seen the films. Who hasn't heard the music for "The Big Blue," for example? Or "Titanic"? Behind these classics, there are composers. Female composers too, even if they only worked on 7% of French films in 2023, according to Benoit Basirico, a journalist specializing in the field .

The profession remains relatively unknown. But on the occasion of the ^27th edition of the La Rochelle Fiction Festival , around forty professionals in the field of "composition of music for the image," the established expression, were invited by the festival and the Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers (Sacem). Among them, Erwann Chandon, 39, has been in the profession for around ten years. He notably created the soundtrack for the series "My Wife is a Spy!" (M6) , which will be in competition in La Rochelle. A path for which he was far from predestined. "My passion was born in adolescence, I had never set foot in the conservatory, I didn't know music theory... I had to learn everything after I was 20!" he assures.

Unlike Delphine Malausséna, also a composer, who began her music studies at the La Rochelle Conservatory. While the young woman initially gravitated toward a career as a sound engineer, she changed direction during Covid. "I was a little unaware; I just knew that my place was there. I didn't even think about competition, about finding a style, or about standing out," she recalls.

For both of them, it took a first director (or director) believing in them, and then luck smiling on them.

This year, Delphine Malausséna's compositions will be featured at the Fiction Festival in the HBO Max series "Merteuil." An adaptation of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos's "Dangerous Liaisons." "The idea was really for the music to follow the psychological evolution of Isabelle de Merteuil's character, starting from baroque foundations," the musician explains.

“In a series, you have to create a musical identity common to the episodes, so that the themes are recognizable.”

"In a series, you have to create a musical identity common to the episodes, so that the themes are recognizable and characteristic of the series, while also allowing them to evolve. I started with the script, the images from the shoot and I pulled the thread, letting myself be guided intuitively," describes the young woman who works with her violin and her electronic keyboard, which allows her to play all the instruments.

"Music is used to tell what doesn't come across in the image, where a little reinforcement is needed. Sometimes it's just a note."

For Erwann Chandon, who swears by film music from the 1980s and 1990s, "music is a storytelling element among others," just like the image. "It's a lot of discussion with the writers and directors to understand the characters, their feelings, why they react the way they do. Music is used to tell what doesn't come across in the image, where a little reinforcement is needed. Sometimes it's just a note...", he analyzes.

"It's nice when the music isn't even noticeable anymore, but it's also nice when the music is noticeable at times," he jokes. For feature films, the composer always records soundtracks with real symphony orchestras. But for series like "My Wife Is a Spy!", the budget dictates a hybrid recording. A solution that only half-satisfies this lover of old-school films and composers. "Jurassic Park" certainly wouldn't have been as successful without John Williams. Nor would "Forrest Gump" have been without Alan Silvestri.

“With these platforms, the work of our French composers is more visible internationally!”

But given the advent of digital technology in the creative process, how do we view the arrival of platforms? "Television remains the largest source of revenue in terms of royalties generated by music for screen (46%), because the volume of works broadcast remains higher. But we now have 17% of royalties coming from digital technology," comments Alexandre Mahout, Director of Development and Repertoires at Sacem, who doesn't see this as a bad thing. "With platforms, the work of our French composers is more visible internationally!"

If the platforms have been tamed by film professionals, what about artificial intelligence? "I'm not super worried," observes the development director. "AI is based on what has been done previously by humans, then feeds itself thereafter; it will be difficult for it to create something new. When we want something truly different, unprecedented, we will continue to call on composers," he dissects. "Especially since, as a composer, we don't just translate an image into music. We must suggest certain emotions that don't appear in the image," adds Erwann Chandon. In other words: no masterpiece without music, and no music without a composer.