Vingt Dieux: “a breath of fresh air on French cinema”
Youth Prize at Cannes before winning loads of other awards, this first feature film breathes a breath of fresh air into French cinema. That of the Jura, with its wide open spaces filmed like western landscapes and its Franche-Comté accent which anchors the film in the reality of a region that the young director knows well having grown up there. The characters and the plot are inspired by people who have always surrounded her.
The actors are all non-professionals recruited on site through a long casting process in schools, farms and comics. Which brings a documentary aspect to a film which remains a fiction.
The right balance
The story of Totone, a young man more eager to drink beers with his friends than to help his father on the farm, who will have to learn to manage on his own and take care of his little sister.
His bright idea to earn money: create a county with which he will win thirty thousand euros in the agricultural competition. He still has to learn how to make cheese with his friends and a young farmer whom he will seduce. The filmmaker finds the right balance between the adventures worthy of Nickel-plated Feet (how to get the best milk) and the twists and turns of the learning story. Far from any folklore, Louise Courvoisier allocates finesse and complexity to each piece to give substance to this beautiful energy which is transmitted to the viewer.
A first feature film for Louise Courvoisier
She developed a taste for cinema while following an option in high school, before going to study at the CinéFabrique in Lyon. His short film Hand by handlocated in the circus world, was awarded an award at Cannes in 2019.
Pour Twenty Godsher first fiction feature film, which she shot in her native village in the Jura, she called on young talents also from CinéFabrique for the script and image. His mother and brother composed the music.
Twenty Godswith Clément Faveau, Luna Garret. In theaters December 11.