It’s Eternal Sunshine meets Richard Curtis in Julie Magnaudet’s conceptual romantic comedy Broken Hearts, the story of a hopeless romantic who’s regular at a hospital for those with, as the title suggests, broken hearts. This time, for her prescribed treatment, she’s given a rebound by the name of Charlie, who happens to be a love-cynical individual. Over the course of the film the two debate their opposing perspectives on love whilst maybe forming a connection of their own along the way. What struck us about Magnaudet’s short is how she’s able to balance a high concept with grounded character work, a tricky balance to achieve but one she does so effortlessly. With Broken Hearts having completed its successful festival run and now premiering online, DN sat down with the French-Swiss writer/director to learn more about the process of making the film during her time at London Film School and the ways she saved money on the production without sacrificing her incredibly ambitious vision.

Broken Hearts is a short film with a conceptual idea at its core. Where or how did that idea come about?
The first spark of the idea happened while I was still in film school. We were in a camera practical class and were practicing a dolly move following two people. My friend said, “Right, you’re a doctor and you’re telling me my heart is broken” which was a lightbulb moment for me. I immediately turned to another student and said that would make such a great film, whilst they did not seem to agree, from there the seed of a broken hearts hospital was planted. I let it grow in the back of my head for months, originally thinking of it more as a TV series, I eventually decided to adapt the idea as a short to make it my graduation film and use it as a proof of concept for the TV series.

You mentioned there about making the short at film school. How challenging was it to realise such an ambitious and visual idea as a student film production?
It was definitely an ambitious project for a student budget, but so are most of my ideas. The most important thing for me was to pick the right team for this, a team that I knew would be inspired by the creative potential and that would be able to bring their own mark and creative thinking to the project.

I wanted our hospital to break the traditional codes, and feel colourful, warm and welcoming.

Location was another very important element in bringing my vision to life. I wanted our hospital to break the traditional codes, and feel colourful, warm and welcoming. We had to find something that resembles a hospital but with a completely different colour palette, and we were doing all this on a small budget, easy, right? Production design was always going to be a massive part and we had regular meetings with PD Anastasiya Mykhaylova and DoP Bo W. Giesen to establish the colour palette for each room, making sure design and cinematography worked hand in hand in creating this unseen place and achieving the warm and colourful feel we were after...
Watch the short & read our full interview on Directors Notes now ⏯️