Wizkid private jet, somewhere over the Alps. I’m reviewing the itinerary when I realise my footage is completely fucked. I inhale the days of work destroyed. Some assistant hands me rum with ice. We clink. I grit my teeth.
Over an October coffee along the Canal Saint-Martin, Gabriel 1999 speaks on making videos, of wrecked boats and tennis in the dark. I hand him cash; he reappears with frothed caffeine. We sit.
Cultivated rive gauche by a mother-documentarian and father-photographer, the filmmaker spent his summers in Rio de Janeiro, to him the world’s most beautiful city. Copper curls draping his cheeks, the français-brasileiro is so handsome I had single friends asking to be plus-one to the interview. Is bruh mixing and mingling? I maintain journalistic discretion. But here’s his IG.
You never forget your first
“A GoPro. High school, we’d go on construction sites, climb up buildings, to squat or go across the roofs. I’d film everything. And then my parents said they had a miniDV camera, ‘Nah, but it’s crap. It’s from the early 2000s’. I was already a fan of anything lo-fi, VHS, so I tried it and loved it. During my vacations in Brasil, I took it out non-stop non-stop non-stop. I started editing, uploading to IG. But people didn’t really get it. Nobody rive gauche was doing super creative stuff.”
A river runs through it
“Rive droite is much stronger, culturally, than rive gauche. All the big brands are rive droite. Everyone who creates culture, whether in Paris or across the world, is rive droite. You already have kids in high school who are stars, dress super well, produce music. I admit this wasn’t really the entourage that led me to photo and video. We used to say, nobody influenced us, cuz we didn’t hang with anyone who did photo, video, made sick clothes. It’s a tricky thing to navigate, rive gauche. To start fucking with people rive droite.”
His blood in Montparnasse
“My father, he was an art director, freelance. Like five, six years ago he started taking photos on the side. One day he had a project for a client, Issey Miyake. The photographer got sick, and they needed a new one. My dad said, ‘If you want, I’m new to photo, I can try.’ Il a fait un bête de taff. He fucking killed it. And he was damn near 45—he had started just like us. Now he does work for Chanel, Dior, Miyake, Jacobs. He’s come out with a photo book. There’s billboards of his photos in the streets.
“But this didn't really influence me, I admit, since I was already making videos and photos. It more so influenced me in the sense that, my mother made documentaries, both my parents have never been salaried, working nine to fives. There were years when it was unstable as fuck. But I saw it was largely possible not to work a nine to five. It’s cuz of that I’m now freelance. Since two months ago.”
Filming for 99GINGER, who The Face says is behind the best parties in Paris
“When I film parties, it’s important that I’m vibing. I can't feel like I’m working. If so the video doesn’t work. I drink, I smoke, I enjoy myself, je kiffe la soirée. But I admit I’m sort of trying to distance myself from filming parties. I’m afraid that it will restrict me—that everyone will call me only for that. Whereas really I want to film campaigns, for fashion, for music.”
His infatuation with cassette tapes
“Frankly those are all my references. Joy Divizn, main influence. PINKFLAMINGOUSA. And AWGE. You know it? A$AP Rocky’s label. AWGE DVD—they would film tons of rappers on VHS and then make hour-long movies. At age 14, 15, I loved the imagery, and still do.
“I don’t like digital things. I find them lame. Je vraiment trouve ça lame. With all the stuff I like, there’s a nostalgia. And I keep going further back. At the beginning I was on MiniDV, then it was VHS, and now I’m on super eight. On film, like from the seventies. And now I'm filming a video on super sixteen. It’s releasing soon.
“I don’t find that having a greater quality means greater content. With VHS, the grain, the colours are more beautiful, I find. More pure. I can’t explain it. I love things that are low-quality…super authentic.”
His most cherished projects
“My friend has a brand called Better Days Ahead. It’s a homie, we often go on vacation together in Greece, on the island of Patmos. One summer he says, let’s shoot something. We filmed on super eight, in a boat cemetery. I find it really beautiful. It kind of put me in this mode where I know what my style is now. Very poetic, implicit. Coucher de soleil.”
“And similarly I did a campaign for Sergio Tacchini, in Monaco on the Monte-Carlo tennis grounds. I filmed it on sixteen millimetre, and the whole roll of film got fucked. Poof, gone. Luckily I’d filmed on super eight, to double, and I did the campaign on super eight which is really strong as well. These are the risks. It’s sad. That’s the exchange. It’s part of the…you gotta accept it.”
Your next visit to Parigi
“For food, Paper Boy, in the 11e. For drinks, la Chope des Artistes. All the most important people in Parisian culture. Crazy well-connected. For clubbing, a 99GINGER party. But a good club in Paris…le Pamela isn't bad. Silencio is good, too. But the bouncers hate me. They remember my face. When we organise events with 99GINGER, they don’t have the choice to not let me in, and they get pissed. As soon as they have the chance to talk bad to me…unreal. Le Sacré is cool, as well.”
A novelesque anecdote
“Basically, at Fête de la Musique, I met this chick. We spent the night together. We had a moped accident. There were people who helped us get back up. And one of the guys who helped us stole her phone. The day after, her mother tracks down her phone, in a council estate, like, the ends, you feel me, really the ends. Bah, alright, let’s go. A building with 25 floors. We look around, knock on doors. Obviously impossible to find the phone.
“The chick, the minute she leaves, Wizkid’s manager calls me. I had never worked with him at this point.
‘Yeah…we need a guy who films for Fashion Week. Can you come to his private jet?’
“I hadn’t showered, was still hungover. I go to the airport. They arrive, we go to his hotel. I ended the night at the George V, the most beautiful hotel in Paris, at the dinner table with Wizkid and Naomi Campbell. Afterwards I followed Wizkid over four days, to all the shows, Dior, Rick Owens, Louis Vuitton, to his hotel, to restaurants. And then they called me again to film a show at Bercy. The biggest venue in Paris. 10,000 seats. Immense. That was super cool, too.
“But likewise, I didn’t post any of it. If it’s not something I find dope…”