Genre: Drama

Country: France
Language: French

Presented at the Film Center and in our Virtual Screening Room as part of Young French Cinema 2022, with Moly Kane’s short film Les Tissus Blancs/Sër Bi.

Aided by the intimate camera work of cult American cinematographer Sean Price Williams (Good Time) and ebullient performances by two of French cinema’s most engaging young actresses, Souheila Yacoub (Climax) and Déborah Lukumuena (Divines), Volpé gives us a story of death that is bursting with life, a fresh take on the restless nights of Paris, and an ode to the power of female friendship. Premiered at Cannes Film Festival 2021.

Country: France
Language: French

Presented at the Film Center and in our Virtual Screening Room as part of Young French Cinema 2022, with Vincent Maël Cardona’s short film Le Monde en Soi/The World Within.

Deploying a stellar soundtrack of European post-punk classics, Cardona juxtaposes the eternal thrills of first love and the frustrations of provincial life with a lovingly specific depiction of a bygone period, lending tremendous emotional immediacy to the lives of those who came of age at the dawn of the 1980s. Premiered at Cannes Film Festival 2021.

Country: France, Kosovo
Language: French

Presented at the Film Center and in our Virtual Screening Room as part of Young French Cinema 2022, with Julien Goudichaud’s short film Confinés dehors/Locked Out.

Though only twenty years old, Bajrami displays a distinctly personal approach to filmmaking, perceptible both in the film’s autobiographical aspects and in her impressionistic manner of accumulating apparently banal moments to catch the fleeting sensations of adolescent rage and hope. Selection of Cannes Film Festival 2021 and TIFF 2021.

Country: France
Language: French

Presented at the Film Center and in our Virtual Screening Room as part of Young French Cinema 2022, with Saïd Hamich Benlarbi’s short film Le Départ/The Departure.

Shot in Herzi’s childhood neighborhood, Bonne mère takes a documentary approach to the struggles of a woman supporting her children and grandchildren, capturing the tedium of the pre-dawn commute to work, the sadness of visits to a son in jail, and the nagging anger of being relegated to a neglected corner of society, yet capturing the resilience and humor that drives the people Herzi films, most of whom are local non-professionals. Premiered at Cannes Film Festival 2021.

Country: France
Language: French

Presented at the Film Center and in our Virtual Screening Room as part of Young French Cinema 2022.

Aurélia Georges’s adaptation of Wilkie Collins’ novel “The New Magdalen” focuses on the impact of rigid class hierarchy on the lives of three women, offering a nuanced feminist reading that resonates with the iniquities of our era. Premiered at Locarno IFF 2021.

Country: France
Language: French

Presented at the Film Center and in our Virtual Screening Room as part of Young French Cinema 2022.

While writer-director Emilie Carpentier captures our attention—and emotions—with a charming tale of first love between two young people from different backgrounds, her real subject here is the dawning of political and social awareness at the cusp of maturity. In capturing Adja’s gradual decision to step up and fight for her future, she pays tribute to the courage of a generation for whom the fight for environmental justice is an urgent matter of survival.

Country: Belgium
Language: French

Presented at the Film Center and in our Virtual Screening Room

As her older brother Abel is bullied by other kids, 7-year-old Nora struggles to fit in and find her place on the schoolyard. Laura Wandel’s Cannes prize winner was Belgium’s entry for Best International Feature at the 94th Academy Awards.