We don’t know whether to call it the Biarritz International Film Festival or by its nickname, “New waves”, but the first edition of this new event dedicated to the 7th art on the Basque coast has kept its promises . Spectators, professionals and film crews crossed paths with a smile on their face and a delighted face before leaving on vacation.
The theme of youth, although cruel for those over 35 (limit set by the organizers), was not so badly found. The eight films in the competition were not all signed by youngsters (The Wild Sunflowers is the sixth feature film by Spaniard Jaime Rosales), but they all featured young people, from childhood to their first steps. in adulthood.
The festival ends on Sunday July 2 but the jury delivered its prize list this Saturday evening. Chaired by the Iranian Saeed Roustaee, already a filmmaker who counts from the height of his 33 years thanks to The Law of Tehran and Leila and his brothers, he awarded the Grand Prize to A Song Sung Blue, the first feature film by the Chinese Geng Zihan, 26 years old. A harsh and delicate portrait of a teenager. Xian, 15, is entrusted to her father, whom she doesn’t know well, for the summer holidays. He runs a photo studio, calls her “pissy.” Between two rehearsals in her choir, Xian meets the daughter of her father’s employee, Mingmei, 18, a rebellious air hostess apprentice. She is fascinated and even more. Nothing very new on the side of the impulses and the first emotions but the young actress Zhou Meijun is impressive with stubborn sadness.
À Song Sung Blue passed before Biarritz by Cannes (Quinzaine des cinéastes), just like How to have sex, Prix Un Certain regard. The first film by Briton Molly Manning Walker, 29, is keeping the buzz going before its November 15 release with the Jury Prize and the Nouvelles Vagues Audience Prize. The Condor distributor gave condoms to the spectators before the session. A fun marketing of dubious taste since the film depicts the rape of an English schoolgirl on vacation in Crete. Determined to have sex, Tara (Mia Mckenna Bruce, sensational) goes on parties and gets drunk with her two friends, soon joined by some nice guys.
Molly Manning Walker, herself a victim of sexual assault at the age of 16, offers a sordid vision of straight sex. How to have sex carries an almost puritanical discourse on the pleasures of the flesh only shown from the angle of displeasure and the absence of consent. Could Condor’s condoms be used to make water bombs?
The women were a hit as Italian actress Benedetta Porcaroli won the interpretation award (gender neutral) for Amanda, by Carolina Cavalli. The story of a pretty hyperconnected girl in need of a friend. We did not see it but we did not miss Super bourrés, to which the jury unfortunately remained indifferent. A comedy by Frenchman Bastien Milheau, a former student of La Fémis more fed up with Judd Apatow than Truffaut. The argument is tenuous. Two friends, a boy (Janus) and a girl (Sam) want to celebrate the end of the baccalaureate by drinking like holes. The slaughter of the duo, the puny Pierre Gommé and the robust Nina Poletto, is phenomenal. A South-West version of Les Beaux Gosses and SuperGrave, with donkey and still, Super bourrés has everything it needs to be the comedy of the summer. Too bad it comes out on August 30.
On the non-competition side, Nouvelles vague also had some nice surprises in store. Reality, presented at the opening in the beautiful room of the Gare du Midi, proved the talent of Tina Satter, New York theater director for the first time behind a camera. On June 3, 2017, Reality Winner, a 25-year-old woman, was questioned by two FBI agents at her home. From the recording of the interrogation, Satter creates an oppressive camera and a captivating portrait of a millennial who is both a fan of yoga and firearms, a whistleblower and a patriot, embodied prodigiously by Sydney Sweeney (Euphoria, Whitelotus). A must-see in theaters August 16.
Fairyland, directed by Andrew Durham and produced by Sofia Coppola, recreates the San Francisco of the 1970s and 1980s, from ramshackle bohemianism to the AIDS epidemic. Inspired by the autobiographical book by Alysia Abbott, it depicts a little girl who has gone to live in Frisco with her father, a broke and homosexual writer, after the sudden death of her mother. The chronicle of a difficult, disturbing and touching father-daughter relationship, before withering away in a more conventional second part – and a Parisian episode as kitsch as Emily in Paris.
Finally, Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache made a stopover in Biarritz to present A difficult year, more than three months before its theatrical release in October. A shocking societal subject (in this case two: over-indebtedness and eco-anxiety), a perfect cast (Jonathan Cohen, Pio Marmaï, Noémie Merlant, Mathieu Amalric), foolproof optimism and an impeccable sense of rhythm prove that the duo remains the master of social comedy (and here a little romantic). Roll on autumn.