No need to introduce Viggo Mortensen, the multi-award winning actor, whose most recent accolade was a career achievement Donostia Award at the San Sebastian Festival last month. But the Lumière classic film festival in Lyon was a chance to get up close and personal with Mortensen, the director, at a masterclass in the intimate Comédie Odéon theater.

Switching comfortably between French, English and the occasional Spanish – Mortensen lives in Madrid – the actor-turned-director answered openly to the questions put to him.

Mortensen’s debut, “Falling,” is among 23 films originally selected to premiere in Cannes that will be screened at this edition of Lumière, whose director, Thierry Frémaux, also runs the Cannes fest. It tells the story of John, a gay man whose conservative and homophobic father starts to exhibit symptoms of dementia, forcing him to sell the family farm and move in with John and his husband. Asked how