‘A step back? You shouldn’t step too far back, you know, especially not now. Careful, Franck, taking a step back means going backwards.’

‘No, it means seeing things more clearly.’

With all the irony he could muster, Liem retorted: ‘Hang on, you’re not trying to make us believe that you can see things clearly stuck in the middle of nowhere …’

‘Well, I have a clearer idea than you about the films I want to make.’

Travis went on, in the scornful tone Franck had already noticed he was capable of: ‘Get with the programme, Franck. The brain is like an iPhone; you have to install the updates.’

‘The kind of cinema I like making will still be made in a hundred years.’

For the second time, Travis launched into his tirade: ‘Releasing films in the cinema is too risky. One day you’ll have to think digital, Franck. Can’t you see, these days everyone is glued to their phones from the day they’re born?’

‘No.’

‘Trust me, if you had kids, you’d get it.’

He had already played that card in person three months ago. The killer remark. Franck hadn’t thought he’d do it again. It was either sheer nastiness, or it was thoughtlessness. Franck took it like a punch to the jaw, rendering him speechless. But, again, he did not react. Never before had anyone thrown in his face the idea that not having children was a defect, that not having children was shameful and excluded you from civilisation, from the future of the world, that it excluded you from the cycle of life. These two idiots were denying him his right to understand anything at all.