The 2025 Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, Film at Lincoln Centre’s annual showcase of some of the best francophone films, features many small gems of the festival circuit, including This Life of Mine, Foreign Language, Winter in Sokcho, and When Fall is Coming.
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As a francophile, every year, I look forward to Rendez-vous with French Cinema: Film at Lincoln Centre’s celebration of French-language films. Although most of the films are feted – including many films straight from Cannes 2024 – they’re the kinds of films that won’t find a place among the handful of films programmed by local international film festivals which only have slots for a few French films, usually ones with way more buzz — like Anatomy of a Fall or Emilia Perez.
But there are so many more excellent French films to discover, especially as few countries have such a large output of films directed by women. Past editions of Rendez-vous have included films by some of my favourite established filmmakers that premiered in the sidebars at Cannes, including Alice Winocour (Revoir Paris) and Rebecca Zlotowski (Other People’s Children). The selections also include impressive debuts from new talent like Charlene Favier’s sports drama Slalom and Ramata Toulaye-Sy’s inauspicious romance from the Cannes Competition, Banel and Adama.
An opportunity to discover new talent and catch up with past favourites
Rendez-Vous with French cinema has been an opportunity to discover new filmmakers, like Philippe Faucon (with Fatima in 2016) and keep up with their work in the future, like his excellent Algerian-war drama Les Harkis (2022), which still hasn’t found a US distributor. The festival is an opportunity to discover emerging actors, like Vincent Lacoste, and then watch their next projects. I first noticed Lacoste back in 2016’s Lolo (which I first saw in TIFF). I’ve watched his Rendez-Vous films every year since, including Amanda (a highlight of 2019’s Rendez-vous still without US distribution), The Freshman (2018), and A Real Job (2023, which I discussed on the podcast for its myfrenchfilmfestival screening this year).
Rendez-Vous with French Cinema takes risks that non-francophone-focused festivals wouldn’t: with new blood, with films from Africa, and with films by and about women, people of colour, young people, and people over 50, among others. Many of these films have yet to secure US distribution, meaning this may be your only chance to see them. Here’s a selection of the films I’ve seen at this year’s edition so far, including three films written and directed by women, one film about a woman over 70, and two films about young women.
This Life of Mine (dir. Sophie Fillières)
The Life of Mine had its world premiere in the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes 2024.
In writer-director Sophie Fillières’ final film, shot during the last weeks of her life and edited posthumously, fiftysomething Barberie Bichette (Agnès Jaoui) is having a bit of a mid-life crisis. We meet her as she struggles to choose a font on her computer for her as yet unwritten memoir, as if committing to one will mean committing to an identity which she’s not yet certain fits. As she tells her psychologist later, “I’m not yet sure what my nature is.” Her typographical crisis anticipates her feature-length existential crisis, in which there’s a fine line between loneliness and a psychotic break. Fillières’ hugely witty and very funny film also tells Barberie’s story of trying to find a new lease on life with tenderness and aplomb.
Recently separated from her husband and alienated from her adult son and teenage daughter, she spends her time alone, talking to herself, and unsure how to move on. Barberie’s name is a dual play on words that defines the film: her brutal and barbed remarks provide much of the film’s comedy, and the appalling shortening of her name to “Barbie” is a constant reminder to Barberie that she’s far from young and plastic. Likewise, the French title, Ma vie ma gueule, which roughly translates to “My life my face,” acerbically reflects Barbie’s constant challenge to identify who she sees in the mirror.
This Life of Mine was edited posthumously by Fillières’ children
The film’s first act is its strongest, as we get to know Barberie, who spends most of her time alone — often lying to herself and to her friends. The film gets shaggier as it progresses, likely because Fillières’s children finished the film based on her notes, which would have been harder and harder to do as the film neared its end. Still, Jaoui’s performance carries this unlikely comedy even through its rougher patches. It takes about five minutes to fall in love with Barberie, and if you do, you’ll be glad to stick with the film to the end.
This Life of Mine does not have a US distributor.
The Quiet Son (dir. Delphine and Muriel Coulin)
The Quiet Son had its world premiere in the 2024 Venice Film Festival Competition.
My biggest disappointment of the festival is also an exemplar of the reasons I keep coming back: to catch up with my favourite actors (Vincent Lindon and Benjamin Voisin), even if they end up in middling projects. And to find out what all the fuss is about with a highly-feted French-language title — the great Vincent Lindon (Titane, Measure of a Man) won the Volci Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival, where the film won two additional awards — that might not otherwise be available.
Benjamin Voisin, who also stars, was one of our 2021 Fifty Screen Stars of tomorrow for his work in Proud (2018) and Summer of ‘85 (2020). Since then, I’ve followed Voisin’s career with the help of French film festivals like Rendez-vous: Man Up! (2020), Freestyle (2022), Illusions Perdues (2021), and Soul Mates (2023). Unfortunately, these great actors are let down by an inchoate script that fails to fully probe the depths of the uncomfortable situation and important subject the film addresses.
A twentysomething man becomes enamoured with the alt right in The Quiet Son
Delphine and Muriel Coulin’s The Quiet Son is the story of Pierre (Vincent Lindon), a working class father who feels helpless when his early twentysomething son, Fus (Benjamin Voisin), starts to flirt with neo-Nazism. Fus, who is studying at community college for an industrial job he doesn’t want, sees little hope for his future in his smallish town. Lorraine. This makes alt-right politics — and the violence that follows — attractive as he feels he has nothing left to lose.
Told through Pierre’s perspective, the film is about a man watching his son change bit by bit — but mostly outside the home, where Pierre can’t monitor him. Fus starts hanging out with extremist friends, soon becomes involved in violence, and before you know it, he’s a murderer. But for Pierre, he just sees a lost boy — and eventually, his injured kid covered in blood, unaware that Fus might be a perpetrator.
That perspective leaves Fus’s choices as opaque as they are to his father, and the film quickly runs out of steam. Worse, it turns into a story about a parent who blames himself in a long and frustrating speech in court — a speech that likely helped Lindon win Best Actor. The actors do their best with weak material that never probes too deeply into not just the characters’ psychology but the systems around them that shape their behaviour.
The Coulins’ film The Quiet Son does not have a US distributor.
Foreign Language (dir. Claire Burger)
Claire Burger’s film Foreign Language had its world premiere in the 2024 Berlinale Competition.
Claire Burger’s third feature film, the thoughtful coming-of-ager Foreign Language, premiered in the Berlinale Competition last year, was co-written by Léa Mysius (Ava, The Five Devils), and deserves to be seen more widely. When the film opens, French teen Fanny (Lilith Grasmug) arrives in Germany to stay with her pen pal, Lena (Josefa Heinsius), the daughter of her mother’s friend — only to discover Lena doesn’t want her there. But the animosity ends soon as they realize that difficult parents and feeling like an outsider are experiences that transcend language and national boundaries. When the story moves to France, with Lena as the visitor, Lena and we must question our assumptions about Fanny, her family, and her life.
Lena is opinionated and political, often parentified in her relationship with her unhappy single mother (Nina Hoss). Fanny, by contrast, is malleable: every detail we learn about her seems in response to something we learn about Lena. That helps them connect quickly, but so, too does the dynamic of being an exchange student: the only time you get to relax and speak your own language is with your host family. It also means Fanny plunges headfirst into Lena’s world, and vice versa in France — enabling a heightened shared empathy.
Burger sensitively tackles teenage alienation, mental health, and sexual fluidity with tenderness and a propulsive pace. She also serves as co-editor on the film. If it gets a little messy in the latter section, that’s partly by design because it thoughtfully deals with messy issues.
Claire Burger’s film Foreign Language does not have a US distributor.
When Fall is Coming (dir. François Ozon)
François Ozon’s latest confection, When Fall is Coming, is the rare film centred on the perspective of a retired octogenarian, Michelle (the marvelous Hélène Vincent), and her relationship with her grandson (Garlan Erlos). Michelle’s main trouble is her daughter (Ludivine Sagnier), who despises her mother and looks down on her former job despite reaping the benefits of Michelle’s accumulated wealth.
When Michelle accidentally (or was it accidental?) poisons her daughter with her cooked mushrooms, it drives a wedge between Michelle and her grandson, depriving her of her one important familial connection. Into this maelstrom walks Vincent (Pierre Lottin), the son of Michelle’s best friend (Josiane Balasko). Recently released from prison for an unspecified crime, Vincent is looking for a new start, and Michelle wants to help. In return, he wants to help Michelle with her familial troubles and may or may not step too far.
The script, by Ozon and Philippe Piazzo, is careful about doling out information that might make us less empathetic toward the central characters. Do they mean harm when they cause harm? Is it conscious or unconscious, accidental or deliberate? And in the end, it has a pretty funny and difficult provocation: if a hateful person dies and everybody else’s life improves because of it, does that make it a crime if someone deliberately (or accidentally) killed her?
Music Box Films will release the film When Fall is Coming later this month
Winter in Sokcho (dir. Koya Kamura)
Here’s an excerpt from my TIFF 2024 review: “Japanese-French filmmaker Koya Kamura’s impressively realized feature debut, Winter in Sokcho, is a story about a city, a young woman’s search for identity and place in the world, and a brief encounter between a visiting French artist and a Korean hotel worker. Soo-ha works at a lodging house in Sokcho, in her hometown; it may be a dead-end job where she’s killing time before she really starts her life or perhaps this could lead to something long-term…Soo-ha’s life gets upended when a French graphic artist comes to stay in the hotel…
An ode to the blues, greys, and whites of Sokcho — the production design and costumes match the landscape – a beautiful place that the inhabitants rarely remember to enjoy, so focused are they on the daily grind or escaping. Kamura is sensitive to the boundaries people build and break.”
Winter in Sokcho does not have a US distributor.
Listen to the podcast on the film
Related reading/listening to 2025 Rendez-Vous With French Cinema
More recent French Cinema: Four French films directed by women made our list of the Best Films of 2023. Alice Winocour’s Revoir Paris and Rebeca Zlotowski’s Other People’s Children both screened at last year’s Rendez-Vous. We also loved Claire Simon’s documentary Our Body and Sandrine Kiberlain’s A Radiant Girl. Éric Gravel’s thriller about a single mother, Full Time, also made the list.
More past highlights from Rendez-Vous with French cinema: Our #3 film of 2020, Mikhaël Hers’s Amanda, has yet to secure US distribution. (It is available on VOD in Canada and the UK.) We also love Philippe Faucon’s Fatima, which screened in 2016. His most recent film, Les Harkis, is excellent and screened last year, but has yet to receive distribution. Last year’s highlight A Real Job has since been released on VOD in the US.
