Angoulême 2024 – day 5: Twenty gods, A dream life and Lads

Daily report of the 17th edition of the Angoulême Francophone Film Festival

Movie of the day: Twenty Gods by Louise Courvoisier

Louise Courvoisier came with her family to present in competition what was one of the love at first sight at the last Cannes festival, from where it left with the Prix de la Jeunesse after its presentation in the Un Certain Regard section. Her real family: her mother and her brother who composed the soundtrack for this Twenty Gods. And the cinema family that she created with this film where she surrounded herself only with non-professional actors who, in fact, are having their baptism of fire on the big screen. A festive group that, as on the Croisette, offered one of the most unique proposals of this festival (of which it appears with Rabia by Mareike Engelhardt and Barbès, little Algeria by Hassan Guerrar as one of the big favorites to appear on the list) by the ability of its director to energize her fiction with a dose of vibrant documentary.

We follow Totone, an 18-year-old teenager, party animal, carefree, who finds himself tragically caught up with reality. The death of his father will force him to find money to be able to continue living on the farm with his little sister. To do this, he sets out to win the competition… for the best comté in the region! In this coming of age story, in parallel with learning how to make cheese, Totone discovers desire and especially physical love in the arms of a young farmer. Louise Courvoisier films rural life with rare accuracy. Her film is bright, joyful, exalted, despite all the obstacles placed in the path of her young hero. And her band of actors is literally irresistible. A Small farmer with Dumont sauce, faith in humanity in addition!

Released on December 11th

The trio of the day: Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Félix Lefebvre and Lubna Azabal in A dream life

Family definitely inspires Morgan Simon. In his first feature film, Counts his woundsit was about a father-son relationship. And with A Dream Life, it is still about a son but confronted with a mother who is too loving and therefore unloving. Someone who has always juggled with money struggles before they finally catch up with her, deprived of a checkbook and credit card on Christmas Eve. The last straw that will make this (too) close relationship implode.

Simon could be criticized for treading furrows already explored a lot by French cinema. But he manages to escape by introducing a third character who comes to shake up the duo. The owner of the bar in his heroine’s neighborhood. The first capable of seeing the woman behind the mother, of casting on her that piercing and troubling gaze that will revive her and break the dynamic of the story.

Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Félix Lefebvre and Lubna Azabal (double honoured in this Angoumois competition with Rabia) play these characters who are ultimately chiseled and so rich in paradoxes. And they alone justify, by their accuracy and the joy of playing together that comes across the screen, the discovery of this film, in theaters from Wednesday.

Released September 4th

Today’s revelation: Julien Menanteau for Lads

The world of horse racing has been very little covered in French cinema and when it has been (from Gentleman of Epsom from Grangier to Turf d’Onteniente), the chosen prism has always been that of the bettor or trainers. Coming from a family of riders (but without ever having ridden himself), Julien Menanteau takes it here by changing the angle. He takes that of the lads, which gives its title to his first feature-length fiction film: these apprentice jockeys who constitute the hidden face of it knowing that out of a hundred of them who engage in a sports-study training to make it their profession, only one will touch the Grail. They form the working class of this environment, agreeing to toil like dogs in search, often, of a social elevator because they are mostly from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Coming from the documentary, Menenteau takes a precisely extremely documented look at this little-known world but also reveals here a real sense of fiction, a taste for the romantic. And this through the eventful destiny of his young hero, discovering the world of racing with a passion that goes hand in hand with the frustration he feels as he rises as a jockey when he understands that he certainly races to win but first and foremost as a pawn who serves above all the interests of his bosses and those who finance them. And in this role, Marco Luraschi, François Civil’s understudy for all the horse scenes of Three Musketeers and who played Pierre Durand/Guillaume Canet young in Jappeloupimpresses with his first real big composition on the big screen.

Released March 19, 2025