Euridice, Euridice

CompetitionFeature

In a fraught exchange between Leipzig and Strasbourg, Fanny and Lena warm to each other while the situation around them heats up. As it gets harder to parse fact from fiction, too much trust and not enough, they look to protest movements to teach them what out-of-control adults cannot. Writer-director Claire Burger’s nuanced drama is bracingly of-the-moment, capturing topical issues with a foreboding sense of longing and imminent disaster, and inspiring fiery performances from her leads, including Nina Hoss as a mother undone. After an initially cold reception from Lena (Josefa Heinsius) when she arrives in Germany, 17-year-old Fanny (Lilith Grasmug) will do anything to ingratiate herself with her prickly pen pal. Chocolate-covered shrooms, sexual experimentation, bonding over Antifa and black bloc protest movements—each attempt at connection becomes more daring than the one before, their “Franco-German friendship” mirroring the heated clashes of our time. When the school exchange is flipped, and Lena is now the fish out of water in France, giving into the attraction sizzling under her animosity will mean coming to terms with a world tearing apart at the seams and the fantasies built up to survive it.

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From the tormented little mermaid to the fulfilled woman she is today, Gigi tells us about her gender transition with humor and sensitivity.

FeatureVIRTUAL EXCLUSIVE

Émilie lives in a world of surveillance: her camgirl work; the camera phone lingering on a crush from afar; the headset affording her a drone’s perspective. The same drone that stalks each move she makes, offering inspiration, noting rivals. An unsolicited companion conspiring with or against her. A financially strapped transplant now living in the Paris suburbs, Émilie (ballerina Marion Barbeau) is thrust into a high-powered world when she is chosen for a renovation workshop with a prestigious architect (Cédric Kahn). Her classmates come mostly from “filthy rich” backgrounds, like cocky Olivier (Stefan Crepon), who wants Émilie as his conquest. But Émilie has shy eyes only for self-sufficient Mina (Eugénie Derouand), whose music builds like a “helicoid.” All along, a drone—unlike any known model—is watching her. Waiting for her next move and paying handily for the privilege. Taking the “killer’s point of view” made famous by films like Psycho and Friday the 13th to new heights, visionary director Simon Bouisson’s kinetic debut feature is a morality puzzle wrapped in a cutting-edge, goosebump-raising tech thriller. Getting us to consider: how complicit are we—as individuals, as a society—in our own undoing?

CompetitionDocumentaryVIRTUAL EXCLUSIVE

Outspoken Micheline (81) and sensitive artist Yves (68) have “insatiable” longings for sexual and relational intimacy. Francis (70) is a proudly “loudmouth(ed)” activist who wants to ensure that yearnings become reality. All, under the banner of Grey Pride, have no less an ambition than to change the world. Able to detect, as a minority, things that are unjust to all, queer seniors in France are revealing universal truths about the cult of youth and the medicalization of old age. These Grey Priders are combatting indifference, overhauling the nursing home model, and rethinking how spaces for the elderly accommodate libidos. Micheline, Yves, and Francis may have had their sex lives stifled by repression, loneliness, or AIDS, but they are far from ready to enter “The Zone” of societal relegation. They are prepared to take on embedded prejudices, as well as partners and friends with divergent views on death, in their revolutionary intentions. With stirring poeticism—seasons redolent of adaptation; trees symbolizing how bodies bend or break; desire represented by a glowing red sex toy—filmmaker Alexis Taillant shows us what it means to live “a quiet, wild life.”

Feature

Alexis Langlois’s ambitious debut feature is a phantasmagoric musical drama. A tale of how fame twists and transmutes, following a Britney-like pop icon, her secret punk lover, and an invasive stan through 2000s stardom and its messy aftermath. When the pop industry gives Mimi Madamour (Louiza Aura) a straight-edged polish after her Starlettes en herbe win, underground sensation Billie Kohler (Gio Ventura) feels pushed aside by her girlfriend. In the words of the crazed leader of the Mimi Army fanclub, Steevyshady (influencer Bilal Hassani channeling Perez Hilton on acid), this is “the love story that shook French pop.” A spiraling controversy that pits pop against punk, glittery industry darlings against “pumped up chicks.” Les reines du drame has the thrust of classic musicals with the irreverent edge of Hedwig and the dazzling, exuberant romanticism and tragedy of Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet, and runs gleefully riotous with pop culture easter eggs. Madonna-level physical transformations, Batman Returns-era Catwoman, Drag Race shenanigans, and many nods to the legendary Miss Britney Spears—they’re all here, along with lovingly crafted earworms from the likes of Yelle. A bonafide cult classic in the making.

CompetitionShort

This morning, Marina has an appointment with Charlie to sell her a mattress. This evening, she will cancel her plane for Reunion. But they don't know that yet.

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During the summer, three friends meet on a wild Mediterranean island. Maxime is madly in love with Yann. Carried by this consuming desire, Maxime throws himself in an intense romantic quest, swaying between dream and reality, at the risk of losing himself.

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An African musician meets a charming courtesan in a small French seaside town for a rare and secret moment of intimacy.

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A very powerful short animated film on what it means to be a queer person in a cisheteronormative society.

CompetitionShort

One afternoon, three high school students sneak out of their all-girls Catholic boarding school. Sunny, the new girl, has gone for a swim in the river. Sarah is eager to join her, even though Clémence disapproves.