‘Black Flies’ Star Tye Sheridan and Director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire on Capturing the Chaos, Gore and Heroism of Being a NYC Medic

variety.com:

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire spent more than a year in the back of ambulances, shuttling from one gruesome trauma to the next, as he shadowed EMTs in New York City to prepare for his new movie “Black Flies.” “This immersive approach is crucial,” Sauvaire tells Variety over Zoom, a week before he travels to the South of France to premiere “Black Flies” in competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. “If you don’t really know the reality of this job, it’s difficult to recreate it.” Adapted from Shannon Burke’s 2008 novel, the story follows Tye Sheridan as young paramedic Ollie Cross, who dreams of going to medical school.

But he struggles to study as he is thrust into the intense and mentally taxing work of responding to emergency calls in Brooklyn.

Sean Penn plays a hardened veteran, who teaches Ollie the ropes as they drive through New York City. Sauvaire didn’t have to travel far to find EMTs who were willing to work with him.

He convinced the employees at Wyckoff Hospital, near where the director lives in Brooklyn, to let him observe their line of work. “I was lucky,” Sauvaire said. “They agreed and they were excited by the movie as a way of sharing their own stories.” The constant sense of adrenaline stood out to Sauvaire, who found the days “super stressful and active.” But it wasn’t constantly go-go-go, he adds. “You have to wait for two hours in the back of the ambulance for the next call.