By Roger Costa
THE HORIZON
Vibrant and enriching, first-time director Emilie Carpentier’s modern drama is a highly efficient and timely female character study, following the conflicts of a black Millennial as she navigates fame, sexuality, family, political activism and first love. Actress Tracy Gotoas gives an enthusiastic and convincing performance as the heroine Adja, a young woman in search of identity through her connections with her famed and promising soccer player brother, a clueless friend whose life revolves around her social media numbers and a love interest who becomes an influencer as she engages in a semi-dangerous and reckless ecological political activism. A revolutionary coming of age story, tender and thoughtful, Carpentier composes an unpredictable youth modern tale, proving to be a promising filmmaker, an artist committed to the understandings of this generation’s aspirations. (Screens March 8, 10).
MADELEINE COLLINS
One of Europe’s most seductive and bold performers, actress Virginia Efira gives another stunning turn in this enigmatic psychological thriller directed by Antoine Barraud. She plays a wealthy woman living a double life: married to a maestro with two sons in France and raising a daughter with a lover in Switzerland. Efira builds up her character with incredible sophistication and emotional control, brilliantly balancing the moments of frustration and desperation with those of pleasure and satisfaction. As her secret starts to fall in pieces, risking both of her families, the director invites the viewer for an elegant, suspenseful, unnerving and provocative moral puzzle about family bond and co-dependence, supported by her ravishing, hypnotizing performance. (Screens March 4, 12).
GUERMANTES
Accomplished filmmaker Christophe Honore returns with one of his most personal and intimate projects ever. The director saw his stage adaptation of Proust on a halt when it was upended by the Pandemic. He then decided to film the rehearsals infused as a narrative. The result is a fabulously crafted hybrid of doc and romantic comedy, a marvelously acted tale of love, lust, seduction and betrayal that celebrates the freedom found in art, and the love built throughout collaborative artistic work. Smart, funny and lively, Honore scores another admirable study on human connections, hopes and disappointments. (Screens March 8, 13).
(Presented by Film at Lincoln Center and UniFrance, the 27th Rendez-Vous With French Cinema runs March 3-13/2022 with stars and filmmakers in attendance for Q&A’s. Go to www.FilmLinc.org for details.)
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