Very few independent films get the amount of headlined that Eden has gotten, but when one of the most mysterious and sought after dance groups in the world, Daft Punk is involved, all bets are off. In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, one of the film's co-writers, Sven Hansen-Love, talked about the process for getting Daft Punk's music in the film and working with them to get that done.
The older brother of Cannes award winning director, Mia Hansen-Love, and current director and co-writer of the film, Sven elaborates on how a small indie film was able to circumvent the pricey and time-consuming process to getting samples from the Daft Punk cleared. The brother-sister duo were not going to finish the film without using actual Daft Punk music and the producers were afraid of paying fees of upward of $1 million to make that happen.
They were not counting on Sven's past as a DJ and long standing fandom of Daft Punk that goes back to their early parties in Paris. The two explained the process, "Sven and I were convinced because it was a tribute to house music and because Daft Punk supported the film we would find a way to [get the music rights] for much cheaper," explains Mia. "My producers didn't believe us because unless the rights are negotiated beforehand you can't be sure how much it will cost."
After switching producers twice, the duo were able to get Daft Punk to license Eden three songs for $3,700 each.
The semi-autobiographical film stories the early days of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, better known as Daft Punk from their time first making music in Paris and DJing small gigs in Paris before they were big outside of France. The movie should be interesting to see how it is adapted to some aspects of their life and their career. It has been shown at a few music and movie festivals already (via Pitchfork) and will get its theater release during the spring of 2015. Watch the trailer below to get excited for the full movie.
