Roubaix, Une Lumière On A Sordid Fact

Arnaud Desplechin & the actors of Roubaix, Une Lumière ©YesICannes.com

On May 23, the Cannes Film Festival presented Matthias and Maxime by Xavier Dolan and Roubaix, Une Lumière by Arnaud Desplechin. Leonardo Di Caprio came back on the Red Carpet, for a surprise visit to the Palais des Festivals for Leila Conners’ film Ice on Fire, of which he is the producer.

Xavier Dolan and his actors ©YesICannes.com

Friends first

Matthias and Maxime by Xavier Dolan, a young prodigy of Canadian cinema, presents two childhood friends who kiss for the needs of an amateur short film. This innocent kiss of cinema triggers a questioning which settles between the two boys, a doubt which confronts them with their preferences, upsetting their entourage and soon their lives. Matthias and Maxime talk about friendships mixing young people from different backgrounds with their questions.

Léa Seydoux & Sara Forestier ©DR

A news item in its nudity

In Roubaix, Une Lumière (Roubaix, A Light), Arnaud Desplechin tells the story of a news item in its brutality, its nudity, its enigma, even its inhumanity. A raw material that, through the art of actors, ignites and shows the worst torments of souls. The film sticks to the real, inspired to the director by a news item that haunted him for years. The part of fiction is reserved for the portrait of the police officers who sympathize despite their differences.

Roschdy Zem & Antoine Reinartz ©DR

Social desperation

A Christmas night in Roubaix marred with cars on fire and altercations… Daoud (Roschdy Zem), the head of the local police, and Louis Coterelle (Antoine Reinartz), freshly graduated cop, will face the murder of an old woman. Neighbors of the victim, two young women, Claude (Léa Seydoux) and Marie (Sara Forestier), are arrested for this horrifying crime. These disinherited are addicts, alcoholics, lovers… Arnaud Desplechin dwells on the social desperation of the two suspects that the police will try to understand.

The Festival is on YesICannes.com: yesicannes.com/category/festival-de-cannes