Archive of films Heal the Living / Réparer les vivants
France / Belgium
2016, 104 min
Section:
Variety Critics’ Choice
Year: 2017
What sounds like a routine episode of “ER” is complicated with rare depths of personal and sensual detail in French director Katell Quillévéré’s sublimely compassionate, heart-crushing heart-transplant ensemble, which boasts beautifully pitched performances from Tahar Rahim and Emmanuelle Seigner.
Synopsis
A 17-year-old car crash victim lies brain-dead in hospital, as doctors urgently pitch the virtues of organ donation to his distraught parents; over in another town, a middle-aged mother of two with a severely degenerative heart condition goes on the waiting list for a transplant. What sounds like fodder for a routinely gripping episode of “ER” is complicated with rare depths of personal and sensual detail in French director Katell Quillévéré’s sublimely compassionate, heart-crushing third feature. More polished but no less authentically humane than her previous works Suzanne and Love Like Poison, this spidering ensemble piece — adapted from Maylis de Kerangal’s internationally acclaimed 2014 novel — boasts beautifully pitched performances from the likes of Tahar Rahim and Emmanuelle Seigner. But it’s Quillévéré’s soaring visual and sonic acumen that suffuses this sad, potentially familiar hospital drama with true grace.
Guy Lodge
About the director
Katell Quillévéré (b. 1980, Abidjan, Ivory Coast) is a French screenwriter and movie director. In 2003-2009 she shot four short writer-director pictures, and in 2010 she came out with her first feature title Love Like Poison (Un poison violent), which sensitively portrays a girl’s complicated coming of age in a Catholic boarding school; the film won the Jean Vigo Prize. She is highly interested in relationships and emotional bonds, and in her next film Suzanne (2013) what seemed at first to the young protagonist like supportive sisterly and fatherly love becomes an oppressive burden. Her latest psychological drama, with ambitions to philosophy, is based on the award-winning novel of the same name by French writer Maylis de Kerangal, and Quillévéré was nominated for a César for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Contacts
Artcam Films
Rašínovo nábřeží 6, 128 00, Praha 2
Czech Republic
Tel: +420 221 411 619
Fax: +420 221 411 699
E-mail: [email protected]
www: www.artcam.cz
Playtime
5 rue Nicolas Flamel, 75004, Paris
France
Tel: +33 153 103 399
Fax: +33 153 103 398
E-mail: [email protected]
www: www.filmsdistribution.com
About the film
Color, DCP
Section: | Variety Critics’ Choice |
---|---|
Director: | Katell Quillévéré |
Screenplay: | Katell Quillévéré, Gilles Taurand podle stejnojmenného románu Maylis de Kerangalové / based on the novel of the same name by Maylis de Kerangal |
Dir. of Photography: | Tom Harari |
Music: | Alexandre Desplat |
Editor: | Thomas Marchand |
Art Director: | Dan Bevan |
Producer: | David Thion, Justin Taurand, Philippe Martin |
Production: | Les films Pelléas |
Coproduction: | Les films du Bélier |
Cast: | Tahar Rahim, Emmanuelle Seigner, Anne Dorval, Bouli Lanners |
Sales: | Playtime |
Distributor: | Artcam Films |
Guests
Sylvie Leray
Distributor, Producer