Angoulême 2025 – Day 4: A place for Pierrot, the duo Muriel Robin -Louise Bourgoin and merciless

Daily report of the 18th edition of the Angoulême Francophone Film Festival

The film of the day: A place for Pierrot of Hélène Médigue

Between her job, her life as a separate woman and mother of a teenager, Camille has no second in her days in which she often dreams that she lasts more than 24 hours! And yet, when during a visit to his brother Pierrot suffering from severe autism in the medical home where he lives, she discovers him undergoing overmedication which decreases even more her capacities, she does not hesitate a second! She decides, against the advice of the doctors, to get him out of there and to give her a place at home to offer her the essential: a more dignified existence.

For her first feature film as a director, encouraged by producer Christophe Rossignon (Hatred,, Market law,, On behalf of the earth…) Hélène Médigue (who was one of the pillars of the series from 2004 to 2009 More beautiful life) has chosen to draw inspiration from his own story and his relationship with his brother. An eminently personal film therefore but also and above all powerfully universal. Because his A place for Pierrot finds its singularity in its way of taking an interest in those are most often out of frame.

The caregivers, the loved ones whose daily life is obviously put without above by these situations, exhausted but refraining from letting go even to sacrifice their own lives. Marie Gillain impresses in Camille, her most beautiful role since All our desires De Lioret, accompanied by the generosity of the always perfect Grégory Gadebois, whose game, in each scene, is turned towards his partner. A thousand places of an acting force demonstration. And like a worthy, sensitive, extremely moving film but never dripping good feelings.

Released September 10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txe5hasm9ko

The duo of the day: Muriel Robin-Louise Bourgoin in The worst mother in the world

Judith and Louise are a mother and daughter. The first is a clerk in a small provincial court, the second, a brilliant and relentless substitute for a prosecutor promised to a flamboyant career in the high sphere of the magistracy. And they maintain, to use a litote, a complicated relationship that makes them rejoice to live far from the other, without trying to reconnect. Until the day … Louise finds herself transferred to the court where her mother works. Or the promise of electric reunion which will be held at 1000%!

The shadow of a Dupontel hovers on this delightful first feature film by Pierre Mazingarbe. In its staging as in its direction of actors pushing as much as possible all the cursors. And in this little game, Muriel Robin and Louise Bourgoin prove to be a bright accomplices, making each joint scene a fireworks with low and fiery replicas exchanged where their two characters seek the KO standing from the other. With a mastery that prevents them from pouring into caricature or cabotinage.

Like a scenario which, under exchanged cowards, tells in hollow the sacrifice in silence of certain mothers to allow their daughters to have life that society had forbidden them to ambition at the same age in their time.

Release in 2026

The revelation of the day: Julien Hosmalin for Mercilessly

This is a film that would make a very beautiful Valois of the staging in the record which will be revealed on Saturday evening. Julien Hosmalin’s very first feature film which follows the return – on the death of his mother who was a shooting stand in a funfair – in Dario, a young man whose big brother Ryan never understood the why of this distance of more than 20 years. Mercilessly will reveal over the past 90 minutes held and tight, the why and the how of this rushed departure. And of the silence in which Dario continues to wall at first, before he recruited one of the officials of the tragedy who pushed him to flee suddenly without turning around.

Remarkably embodied by Adam Bessa (Ghosts) and Tewfik Jallab (Juliette Armanet’s companion in Go on a day),, Mercilessly Also seduced by the thriller’s atmosphere created in the image and sound by its director who has perfectly made his own the references of the American summits of the genre having been able to inspire it. And create on the screen a tension to be cut with a knife that never is denied.

Release on January 14