Angoulême Festival 2021: The True Family, Small Nature, Young Lovers

The True Family by Fabien Gorgeart (In competition)

The pact

For his second feature film, the filmmaker Fabien Gorgeart delivers a very personal story. He delves into the memories of his childhood and tells the fate of a family, similar to his, which welcomes Simon, a little boy placed by social assistance. Aged 6, the child is preparing to find his biological father, a widowed man embodied by Félix Moati, who wishes to recover custody. This event marks the beginning of an earthquake in the life of the adoptive mother, Anna, played by Mélanie Thierry.

It is thanks to a superb direction of actors and an inspired staging, with as point of reference the ET of Steven Spielberg, that Fabien Gorgeart carries the spectator in a torrent of emotions. By filming the unconditional love that the family has for this child, the director highlights the sometimes dehumanizing universe of social services. Surrounded by Lyes Salem and Félix Moati, both of great accuracy, Mélanie Thierry plays with strength a courageous character, beating and who escapes too Manichean treatment. Expected for 2022, this Real family should be talked about a lot.

Thomas Desroches

Almost by Bernard Campan and Alexandre Jollien (Preview)

Apollo Films

Two men set off from Lausanne to the south of France in a hearse. They know each other little, have little in common, at least they believe it …
If we first believe, by reading this pitch, to have a certain impression of “already seen”, we very quickly let ourselves be carried away by this unexpected tandem. Almost brings together an extremely endearing duo that makes us go from laughter to tears in no time. The (real) bond between Bernard Campan and Alexandre Jollien is reflected on the screen and gives this bitter-sweet comedy a sincerity and an extra soul which make this film a nice surprise. Released in theaters January 19, 2022.

Brigitte Baronnet

Petite Nature by Samuel Theis (In competition)

Ad Vitam

Johnny (Aliocha Reinert) is 10 years old and takes care of his little sister like an adult. The repeated absences of his mother, a tobacco seller at the German border, force him to rely only on himself. When his school teacher (Antoine Reinartz) notices him and takes him under his wing, Johnny sees in him the only chance to escape his reality. The admiration of the young boy quickly turns into obsession.

After Party Girl – feature film he had co-directed with Marie Amachoukeli and Claire Burger – Samuel Theis made of Small type his first solo film and signs a great success. He delicately questions the complex psychology of a character who does not find his place among children of his age and even less among adults. To tell the story of the survival of his young hero who fights against social determinism, the filmmaker is daring by taking an interest in a troubled relationship, always on the line. A tale both sensitive and of great fury, Small type marks the spirits by its magnificent images and the talent of its two interpreters, Antoine Reinartz and Aliocha Rienert, a revelation. In theaters in February 2022.

Thomas Desroches

The Young Lovers by Carine Tardieu (Preview)

Ex Nihilo Kare

As they met in a hospital corridor following a drama, Shauna (Fanny Ardant) and Peter (Melvil Poupaud) meet 15 years later by chance. She is 71 years old, he is 45. Everything opposes them, except the fascination they have for each other. After the first gestures, the first kiss, a relationship takes shape. First secret, it takes precedence over everyone’s daily life. For Shauna then opens the possibility of another future, of a new life which reminds her that before being a widow, a mother and a grandmother, she is a woman.

Died in 2015, director Solveig Anspach wanted at all costs to bring this romance – lived by her own mother – to the screen. Carine Tardieu makes this wish come true in the most beautiful way. She chooses Fanny Ardant and Melvil Poupaud to create a great cinema couple. Modest, yet terribly sensual, Young lovers touches by its modernity by telling the desires of a septuagenarian. The director plays, on numerous occasions, with the codes of melodrama, while carefully avoiding the pitfalls of the genre. She delicately places her camera on the face and body of an actress who assumes her reflection and whose beauty overwhelms the spectators. Release scheduled for early 2022.

Thomas Desroches

They are alive by Jérémie Elkaïm (In competition)

Ad Vitam

With They Are Alive, actor and screenwriter Jérémie Elkaïm directs his first feature film. He adapts the autobiography of Béatrice Huret, Calais my love, and tells the story of a caregiver (Marina Foïs), a far-right sympathizer, who falls in love with an Iranian man in the “jungle” of Calais. First a volunteer, she engages in an impossible love towards and against all.

Despite its terribly risky subject, Jérémie Elkaïm manages to offer the film a nuanced look, never moralizing, on two beings who come to terms with their differences. Camera on the shoulder, he follows with great realism and a touch of black humor the journey of a harsh and sometimes unsympathetic heroine, far from the clichés of the “white savior”. Marina Foïs – at the origin of the project – impresses in the skin of a character whom she knows how to make vulnerable. She forms with Seear Kohi a duo with authentic dynamics that Jérémie Elkaïm sublimates through intimate scenes of rare intensity. Film expected in 2022.

Thomas Desroches

Rosy by Marine Barnérias (Documentary)

Gaumont

Like a film like Demain by Mélanie Laurent and Cyril Dion, Rosy is part of the lineage of inspiring documentaries from which you emerge with a burst of life and action. If the subjects of these two documentaries are very different, there is a positive energy and vibrations, thanks to the people who carry them.
Marine Barnerias was diagnosed at age 21 with multiple sclerosis which threatens her with partial or total paralysis. Against the advice of her doctors, she decided not to take treatment and left France alone to cross three countries: New Zealand, Burma and Mongolia. During this trip, she will get to know herself better, find a balance and live with this sclerosis that she nicknamed Rosy.
The film is made up of many images shot during this initiatory journey, and seduced by the energy and combativeness of its heroine. Cinema release January 5, 2022.

Brigitte Baronnet

Rose d’Aurélie Saada (In competition)

Apollo Films

Pink this is the name of the first feature film by Aurélie Saada, a former member of the music group Brigitte. It’s also the name of its main character, a 78-year-old woman, played by Francoise Fabian, whose life changes after the death of her husband. Lost and alone, despite the presence of her children, she loses interest in life, until a meeting suddenly changes her perspective. From then on, Rose is reborn and a revolution begins in the face of the incomprehension of her family.

It is a solar, funny and infinitely touching film directed by Aurélie Saada. She is inspired by the women of her own family to draw a beautiful character who becomes even bigger in the hands of Françoise Fabian, more irresistible than ever. TO Through the late emancipation of this woman, the director sheds light on the selfish – and perhaps universal – behavior of her children who become witnesses of this transformation. True burst of life, Pink is undoubtedly one of our favorites of this 14th edition of the Angoulême Festival. In theaters December 8, 2021.

Thomas Desroches

Between the waves of Anaïs Volpé (New looks)

KMBO

Between the waves follows the friendship of Margot (Souheila Yacoub) and Alma (Déborah Lukumuena). These two inseparable friends share the same passion for the theater. Both have an immense urgency to live. The film takes us through a wide range of emotions, from laughter to strong emotions.

What we remember above all is its energy, its vitality and the strength of its tandem of actresses. The filmmaker Anaïs Volpé, who had produced the self-produced project Heis in the past, signs a film with communicative energy, always in motion, and an aesthetic photograph reminiscent of American independent cinema (we owe it to Sean Price Williams, cinematographer of Good Time by the Safdie brothers).

Brigitte Baronnet