One of the most singular and admired French writer-directors of the last two decades, Bruno Dumont’s award-winning body of work includes The Life of Jesus (winner of the Caméra d’Or Special Mention at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival), Humanity (winner of Cannes’ Grand Prix and Acting Awards for its two non-professional leads); the road movie Twentynine Palms, shot in Joshua Tree National Park desert (2003 Venice Film Festival); Dumont won his second Cannes Grand Prix for Flanders, followed by Hadewijch and Outside Satan, two films dealing with religion and mysticism. He cast Juliette Binoche in the biopic Camille Claudel 1915 and the comedy Slack Bay, named by Cahiers du Cinéma one of the best 10 films of 2016. Dumont’s highly popular comic miniseries Lil’ Quinquin were followed by the musical Jeannette: The Chilhood of Joan of Arc (2017 Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight) and Joan of Arc (winner of Special Mention at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival's Un Certain Regard). FRANCE is his 11th film.
Kino Lorber is proud to announce the release of FRANCE, a satirical drama set in contemporary Paris, Léa Seydoux stars as France de Meurs, a seemingly unflappable superstar TV journalist whose career, homelife, and psychological stability are turned upside down after she carelessly drives into a young delivery man on a busy street. This unexpected eruption of reality triggers a series of self-reckonings as well as a strange romance that proves impossible to shake. As France attempts to slow down and retreat into a simpler, anonymous life, her fame continues to pursue her. Starting out as a tragicomic satire of the news media, writer-director Bruno Dumont’s provocative new film spirals out into something darker as it examines the difficulty of maintaining one’s sense of self in a corrosive culture.
FRANCE will open in New York (Film at Lincoln Center) and Los Angeles (Nuart) on Friday, December 10th followed by a national rollout.
One of 2021’s Best Films - Cahiers du Cinéma
“Dumont delivers wild twists at a hectic pace, creating a kaleidoscopic frenzy of unreality and turning the daily life of a celebrity into a hallucinatory, media-saturated distortion.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker
“Bruno Dumont offers Léa Seydoux her most resplendent role to date, that of a woman destroyed by the media complex in which she is trapped." – Le Monde
"Bruno Dumont examines a France that has been hijacked by social media and 24/7 news. A violent satire, shot through with lightning bolts of melodrama, interpreted by Lea Seydoux gone full kamikaze." – Premiere Magazine
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