Who will succeed Aftersun’s devastating nostalgia? For its 49th edition, the Deauville American Film Festival will not lack emotions or stars on the screens (if not on the red carpet due to the strike that is paralyzing Hollywood). Kit Harrington (Jon Snow from Game Of Thrones), Jesse Eisenberg (Social Network), Eva Longoria (Desperate Housewives), Ariana DeBose (Oscar winner for West Side Story) are some of the names starring in the films that will be screened in the Normandy seaside resort from September 1 to 10.
The organizers revealed, on Tuesday morning, the 14 feature films in the official competition that will have to be decided between the jury chaired by Guillaume Canet and the revelation jury headed by Mélanie Thierry. Cinephiles will find there, as usual, titles from independent cinema, having made waves at the Sundance, Tribeca and even the Directors’ Fortnight festivals.
The traditional thrillers and thrillers are there, like the great feelings, starting with the impossible romance that capsized all American critics: Past Lives, our lives before by Celine Song. At 12, Nora and Hae Sung are childhood friends, platonic lovers. Circumstances separate them. She follows her family to Toronto. He remains in their native South Korea. At 20, chance reconnects them, for a time. At 30, they meet again, adults but Nora is married. They will be confronted with what they could have been, and what they could become.
Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe of Aitch Alberto go back in time in 1987, in El Paso. Ari and Dante, two teenagers who apparently have nothing in common except their “literary” first name, instantly become friends. However, they will forge a deep friendship that will change their lives forever. Eva Longoria plays Dante’s mother.
In Babak Jalali’s Fremont, Donya, a 20-year-old Afghan refugee, works for a makeshift cookie factory in San Francisco. A former translator for the US Army in Afghanistan, her routine is turned upside down when her boss entrusts her with writing messages and predictions. She decides to send a special message in one of the cookies by letting fate act…
Runner by Marian Mathias recounts the Haas quest. When the latter dies accidentally, she insists on granting his last wish and leaves to bury him in the town where he was born, on the banks of the Mississippi River. In this community subjected to the vicissitudes of the climate and the economy, she meets Will, a lonely young boy who works hard in order to provide for the needs of his family. Their friendship will challenge their conception of love and mourning. There will also be a question of death in The Graduates of Hannah Peterson in which a year after the death of her boyfriend during a shooting, a high school student finishes her senior year within a community which seeks to ease her pain.
In Noah Schamus’ Summer Solstice, Leo, a trans man, and his straight, cisgender friend Eleanor go on a weekend getaway, during which old secrets come to light. Joanna Arnow’s Life According to Ann depicts a woman focused on sexual submission.
The hallucinated road trip will be on the menu of The Sweet East by Sean Price Williams where a teenager runs away during a school trip. Over the course of her encounters, like Alice in Wonderland, she discovers the mental, social and political fractures of the United States. Wayward by Jacquelyn Frohlich portrays an eleven-year-old girl in constant conflict with her mother on the road from Idaho to Los Angeles. Along the way, they pick up a charismatic young woman. The young girl develops a special relationship with her, blurring the lines between running away and kidnapping.
The tension will be at its height with Blood for Dust by Rod Blackhurst. Cliff, a salesman who travels the roads and is crumbling under debt, embarks on a dangerous path the day he reconnects with Ricky, an old acquaintance with dubious methods camped by Kit Harrington far from Westeros. In Roxine Helberg’s Cold Copy, an ambitious journalism student falls under the sway of a reputable but ruthless reporter whom she strives to impress, even if it means manipulating her latest story – and the very idea of truth. . John Trengove’s Manodrome will combine masculine influence when an Uber driver dragging the devil by the tail, and camped by Jesse Eisenberg, meets the charismatic leader of a mysterious group of men. Finally, Shane Atkinson’s LaRoy sees a suicidal man mistaken for a hitman. Deciding to play the game, he does not understand the gear in which he puts his finger.
Lovers of dystopia and science fiction are not forgotten and will shiver in front of I.S.S. by Gabriela Cowperthwaite where Ariana DeBose is stuck in a weightless camera. As World War III rages, American and Russian astronauts on the International Space Station are ordered to take control of the station by any means necessary.
Due to the strike of actors and screenwriters, it is impossible to know if some of the most famous faces of these stories will be able to roam the boards of Deauville. Can the Normandy event showcasing independent films from the studios hope for a waiver from the powerful actors’ union (SAG) so the crews can do some promotion? A handful of small projects, including two from the A24 studio which accepted all of SAG’s requests, were able to resume filming.
What about the talents Deauville intends to reward for their career: filmmaker Jerry Schatzberg and comedians Natalie Portman and fellow Game Of Thrones star Peter Dinklage? The rules of the actors’ union allow this and authorize recipients of an honorary trophy to accept them as long as the acceptance speeches do not promote a particular project. The question arises more in terms of image: will they agree to appear at a festival if their colleagues are still mobilized, at the risk of being taken for “scabs”?
