Ep. 399: Guy Lodge on Cannes 2026: The Man I Love, Bitter Christmas, A Woman’s Life

[Music] [Music] Welcome to the last thing I saw. This is another in the CAN 2026 series. This is a fairly far long in the festival by now. Actually to go by Cherry Framow's words and an introduction today, "Veir la fun." Wow, that's what he considers Wednesday. It gets anyone's wondering. Unless he might have been talking specifically about the sort of regard. Anyway, I'm very pleased to be back talking with Guy Lodge of Variety. Welcome back. Thank you. Yeah, we are very much at that point where I think we've always been in CAN. I don't remember life before CAN. I don't think there will be life after it. We're just here forever, I think. And that's okay. You know, there are worse places to be. Yes, there's sun, there are movies on tap. Exactly, that's the blame. But before we begin, I just want to recognize that you're working in an extra capacity this time at Variety. Yes, yeah, I'm finally. I've been at Variety for 15 years now, but I'm finally a fully paid up staff member now. So, yeah. Good news. Have a salary and a pension and it's all very grown up. Yeah, it's getting used to it. That's good, that's good. Good for movies too, I will say, since I. I hope so. I don't know, some of the movies might disagree, but I hope so. Well, let's get to some of these movies, specifically one that was just sort of naturally looking forward to. Actually, there are a couple in that we're talking about that I've been looking forward to for a long time. In this case, it's the new IRISAX film, The Man I Love, which is in competition. Yeah, I think his second time in competition, I think previously, who was with them, Frankie, which we all remember Frankie. Oh, definitely. Yeah, kind of a strange choice that one. I think this one being in competition makes a bit more sense. Yeah, when I visualize Frankie, it's sort of just like a crowd of people on an island or something. I don't know if that's or a mountain. Exactly. And Isabel Hepair, which I mean always a pleasure, but I have to say my memory is a bit foggy of it as well. Yeah, foggy memories. Maybe sometime I'll come back to it. But pretty vivid memories of The Man I Love. So, what's the scenario for The Man I Love? Because in a way, I thought it has a dialogue a little bit in a way with the most recent film that he made. Peter Hujas' Day. A little bit just in terms of having an artist, milieu, and very city, New York City oriented. Exactly. I think it's kind of in dialogue with both those films in a way. Because like passages, it's, you know, it is a queer love triangle essentially. And like Peter Hujas' Day, it's very immersed in a particular kind of time and place of New York in the, kind of, late 1970s, I think, very much kind of disco era. And it has that same kind of almost forensic interest at that Peter Hujas' Day did in recreating that milieu and observing, I think, with great kind of personal affinity and meticulous interest, the ways in which gay men kind of lived and loved and fucked at that time, which I find very compelling because I think Iris Hacks brings so much kind of personal investments and knowledge that world and it really does feel more than a lot of kind of A-Zera dramas that we see and the Man I Love does, you know, become one of those or gradually reveals itself as one of those. Right. I think it feels very, yeah, very authentically in that, yeah, in that place in that period. But it follows Jimmy George, a slightly kind of left-field cabaret performer, I guess, played by Rami Marlek, which is a surprising choice that I think we'll talk about in due course. And obviously an out and proud kind of gay man and performer who is in a kind of long-term living relationship with Dennis, played by Tom Storridge, who's the kind of sensible stable partner, the one who has a real job and real income and the organisation and we're with all to kind of keep the house together and to manage Jimmy's HIV/AIDS medication, which is a very crucial sort of almost like a kind of full-time job for him. And into this kind of odd couple dynamic arrives there downstairs neighbour Vincent, a young twink, I'm just going to say, played by a new comeer called Lucas Ford, a British new comeer and playing British in the film as well, who becomes very, very swiftly enamored of Jimmy and vice versa to the constenation of Dennis, who doesn't mind the open relationship aspect so much as the concern that Vincent has quite recklessly exposing himself to Jimmy's disease. So a very different dynamic then from the love triangle and passages, which was obviously bisexual and the stakes were very different since the well, but is sort of also anchored by the two kind of opposite archetypes of gay men, the sort of the flighty flamboyant kind of artistic one who just follows his impulses and desires and his muse and the more sensible so-called straight acting one trying to ground the relationship and hold it all together in the way that Franz Rogowski and Ben Wischor played respectively in passages. And I found it again, I found it compelling then, I find it compelling now, I think, you know, these are people that I resex clearly knows very well or has known in various forms and incarnations over the years and I think he writes them with great closeness and great tenderness and perceptiveness as well. And I think a commendable lack of judgment kind of on any one front. And that's really the main thrust of it, there's not, you know, a terribly clear directional narrative, it's a sort of series of vignettes in this, I guess, over the course of about a year in the life of this trio and, you know, dipping in on, you know, family events, we also have Rebecca Hall playing Jimmy's very loving and supportive sister and they're various friends and queer cohorts and I think it builds a very organic and persuasive sense of community as well. That carries the film and the film really rests on I think. Yeah. And part of the community is the one around this performance piece that Jimmy George is in the process of rehearsing for, I guess, a pretty imminent opening. And it seems to be based, I don't know if it's based entirely because I don't know that we see all of it, but it seems to be based on a TV broadcast of a singer with a backing band. Yeah. I feel ignorant, is this a singer I should know or I don't know? I think it's actually, I think it's based on maybe a film about the singer. I'm still working out if it's to what extent this source material is real or fictional or I believe, you know, given, given Irosax kind of period fixations that there is a a real text at work. Yeah. But I haven't yet had the time though I very much have the curiosity to dig into this because this figure that Jimmy kind of plays in the film is a kind of mid-century French diva of sorts and very, very fabulous and very demanding and he plays her as a kind of, yeah, as a kind of high camp drag act, but also with, yeah, with great sort of empathy and sort of identification as well as a performer. And this performance in particular, this one musical number which we see over and over again in various iterations is something he becomes quite fixated on. Yeah. And I think it's eventually the prism through which we see his entire kind of identity as a performer. Yeah. And it's funny, I mean, I think before the festival, round the time it was announced, the word went round that the film was a musical. Yeah. I remember that. Which is not true, even though there is obviously much kind of organic music and musical performance in the film. But I sort of see where that confusion came from because the, you know, the musical performances is really integral to the character. But there was also another report coming round that it was a fantasy which it definitely isn't in any dimension whatsoever. So that's how the sort of can chain of with whispers can sometimes lead to that wildness in the world. Yeah, yeah, I mean the musical one I heard and I don't know if it was an alternate way of describing the narrative because in a way one thing the movie does do is Shift the way part of this narrative is usually told I mean, you know With his with his illness, you know Sometimes that's tracked along a certain bodily deterioration and in the man I love it manifests through the prism You mentioned of the performance piece in a way which you know he's going through his lines, but kind of having trouble holding old together and at the same time is sort of good at covering that some of the time So it's sort of through that lens that we see it as opposed to the kind of Alternatives, you know one of which being that we're in a hospital relatively quickly and the various beats that go with that And I don't know I just took it as a sense that Even there I mean that's one role, but also his role just as being the person he is he's having trouble play as he wants to Because it's and I think it's one of the things I like about the film is that He is a commendably difficult character and and quite a difficult person to be around And and film I think Simplifies us with him enormously, but also yeah also emphasizes what what makes him Yeah, hard to hard to bear and hard to wrangle and sometimes really kind of Almost intolerable to to live with and I think I think that's where the casting gets quite interesting for me because I was I have to make I was fairly apprehensive Going in because Rami Malak is not a personal favorite You know with or without his Oscar for Bohemian Rax D that will just you know put to one side for now, but he isn't actor often find kind of Exorstingly manored and quite Hard to watch just in terms of his his physicality his his particular way of movement his you know his his manipulation of his jaw Which is very particular to him and I do respect actors who have you know a very specific physicality about them But I do just often find him quite tense to watch. He's not it was a friend of mine I think your friend and mine Jessica Kean I think described him as as an actor you don't necessarily feel Safe with when when you're watching his him perform you don't necessarily know that you're going to enjoy what he's doing Right, but as it turns out I think this turns out be quite a canny choice for you know for a performer and a person as Kind of manored and challenging as Jimmy George, and I think it's Clearly very clearly the best work of his career so far Which you know people can be so snarky and say that may or may not be you know much for compliment But um, but it's certainly better than the performance that won him an Oscar which you know is certainly saying something and I think he really Commits and and invests and you know does not flatter himself in any way by Playing this character and full respect for that. Yeah, definitely and and especially since some of the performance involves Kind of being underwater. Yeah a little basically and he finds different ways to to express that and even to sometimes I felt like turns some of that into A mood or an attitude and so that's also interesting and I should also give credit to Tom storage The the British actor plays Dennis the sort of much quieter stader kind of half of this couple. Yeah, and Storridge is an actor who I've you know he's been around a while. I've seen him in many things. He's never made a Huge impression on me. I have to say he's always been serviceable and here I was really Quite well by him actually I have to say I think he you know It's always difficult to play the the straight man for one to the better term against against a Much more you know flamboyant and kind of showy performance and I think he's very Understated and unplayed in a way that becomes very affecting as the man who has to kind of you know dim his light at all times to Yeah, yeah to let his partner Kind of shine in the way that he needs to and I found I found their dynamic kind of more and more moving as the film progressed Yeah, I felt the same way and for some reason it also occurred to me just to Mention like production design details because I also felt all of that is is typically enough for for our sexist films You know really meticulously and detailed absolutely it's a night. I mean you you believe every Book that's on the shelf and you know every painting that's in the house together Like yes, this is this is everything that these you know these people would would have it never looks like a set It looks like you've just wondered in someone's apartment. Yeah someone's very messy apartment And and yeah, I think those are the kind of incidental pleasures of of sex filmmaking I mean every every thing that his character's where makes perfect sense for them and kind of in the haunts that you're Your understanding of them and I was even like obviously you know Jimmy's outfits a very flamboyant But you know Dennis's kind of work where is so particular to a certain kind of masculinity at that time and place and the ways in which he's kind of code switching and Covering in some ways he just knows this world Inside and out and whether you're interested in this world or not and I am I really don't think you can deny the the Immersiveness of it. Yeah, and sorry. I don't know why I'm picking sort of random things But one of the things I wanted to mention is that in this sort of circle of artists friends He has I forget if it's just one scene or more than one scene But they have a beautiful scene where they're just trading songs. Yes with each other and I love that because it's just Well, it feels very authentic I mean and also feels like something they might do it certainly yeah So I really really like that and it's also there's a trust aspect to it. That's nice there So yeah, just all these touches that make because I don't know coming off of Peter Hoogier's day Which I liked I was almost worried that you know he might turn more into that kind of formalism Yeah, I was very impressed by Peter Hoogier's day But it did feel like an exercise in in all senses in in the way that this this doesn't this feels yeah This feels like a kind of very loving portrait and and one that kind of invites you in rather than then just saying you know Look at this and I think yeah, I think that as you say the very complimentary works But they I think one is yeah one is more inward and one is more outward. Yeah So that is the man I love you Irish sax film in competition So maybe we can move on to the new Amal Dovar film bitter Christmas Amarga Navidad or how does it go? Amarga Navidad? Apologies to all Spanish speakers And it's a movie you kind of have to be on your toes for yes And we should say actually this this is the one film in the can competition That is not a world premiere. Right. It opened in Spain back in March and apparently Apparently Pedro is the only film maker who can get the special exception from can because it's it's happened several times before I think you know hulietta and Pain and glory and even going back to ball there all opened in spade and before they came to can Which I love yeah, I think you know, he's he's just special and he's especially his Pedro Amal Dovar You're gonna tell him though And just to sign another weird thing is that it's weird that I never actually hear any details about the films when that happens too Yeah, I mean, I guess if I would just sit down and read alpais or something I I would but that's sort of funny So it's almost as everyone's happy to conspire to make it a genuine can premiere So yeah, I mean, I'm probably need a lot of help here, but I mean the basic story is that it's split between 2025 or 2024 Present let's say yeah And or close enough to the present and then 2004 2004 it begins with the 2004 set story Which is centered on a former filmmaker can turn advertising director called Elsa played by the wonderful Spanish actress Barbara Lenny who's done a lot of great work before but hasn't actually worked with Onward Ovar in a leading capacity before she had a a small role in the skin I live in back in 2011 but this the first time she's worked in since then so full kind of Spanish film buffs I think that's a that's a kind of union which we've been waiting for for a while And she is you know she's successful in her career she has a Support of a very hot boyfriend who in a you know pure kind of fantasy onward Ovar move is a fireman who moon lights as a stripper I mean go off babe. Yeah And so she has this great life, but she's plagued by migraines kind of chronic health problems have been a kind of recurring fixation Yeah in onward Ovar's work of a while for reasons we will get into quite shortly And she also kind of still harbors ambitions of returning to filmmaking right um and as at work on a script that Turns out to be riffing off the various crises of various other women in her life from her kind of best friend Who's in the process of divorcing her husband to another young woman she knows who's kind of bereaved after the death of her son And if there's all all seems a bit sort of diffuse and vague and not so fully formed. The reason for that, and spoiler alert, is that this all turns out to be a script, an unfinished script in the process of being devised by a filmmaker in the present, who's very much a kind of analogue for Pedro Olmodovov, played by the Argentine actor Leonardo Sparalia, who even has Pedro's very distinctive silvery, kind of off here, just in case you're not sure that this is a sort of meta, self-reflecting movie, so he's a slightly more handsome version, as you would if you were making a film by yourself. Why not? Who is also in a bit of a creative dry spell, and is also kind of plundering the lives of those around him for inspiration, including his own very heartboy friend, and his kind of long time and long suffering assistance, who is sort of adjacent to tragedy that he's sort of plundering for his script without her knowledge. So, you know, it's stories nested within stories, and it's alter egos nested within alter egos. It has many parallels with pain and glory, which was back in 2019, which was also very much had a kind of Armadova avatar character in that case played by Antonio Banderos and sort of dealing with his kind of artistic frustrations and inspirations and his health issues. And so we're kind of returning to that well again, which feels maybe a bit soon to be, you know, going there right after, given that that film was only seven years ago, but I think tonally it's a very different exercise, and it feels, where pain and glory are thought was quite close to the bone and quite personal. I think this is much more about playing with his self-image and his self-critique, and it's not a film that cuts, you know, very deep. I think it's really enjoying the kind of hall of mirrors, confusion of storytelling and story ownership, and what an artist can and can't do, and all the kind of debates and games around that. Yeah. And so yeah, I think it's a very puckish and enjoyable film, but maybe not one of his deepest. Yeah, it's a movie. I'm gonna have to watch again before I feel like I can weigh in on it. But I appreciate it just, yeah, the intricacies of an artist's relationships and what he can harvest, what he or she can harvest or not, and seeing those play out in this interesting semi-puppet master kind of way. And acknowledging, even as it is funny, a certain ruthlessness that is an artist's prerogative, I guess. And I mean, it's almost a movie that sort of schools you in that to sort of stand. It's like, you like what I make? This is kind of how it can be made, and you know, you can feel other people's feelings being hurt, but that's kind of how it goes. I'm kind of love with what I hate this way. Exactly. I am the way I am. That's right. Yeah. So yeah, I appreciate that. I also just visually-- this is one of the olddo of our movie where the colors especially pop. Exactly. I think I wrote pretty much the same thing in my review, even by his standards, his kind of eye-searing. And I kind of love that while he's being quite self-effacing and quite lacerating in some ways about himself and his work and implying that he's kind of past his most inspired days, formally, he's just like swaggering and showing off like there's no tomorrow. And yeah, these kind of neon shades throughout, I mean, hot pink has never been like this heart and there's, you know, it's the garish shots of yellow and orange and, you know, serulean blue. And Miranda Priestley would thoroughly approve. Yeah. And even to the point where there's a point in Elsa's story where she kind of goes an impulsive writers retreat to the black-based old beaches of Lancerotic, which is the total surreal landscape. With beach, that's literally kind of Ebony black, the sand, which naturally makes all of, you know, all the dovas choices in swimwear and pickling blankets and whatever else, just absolutely pop all the more off the screen. Yeah, it's this kind of gorgeous movie that's almost needlessly gorgeous. It's just so excessive and so bright. And such a pleasure on that front and he's doing it just because he can. Just because he can. And also in that way kind of peacocking and showing off his aesthetic to completely excessive degree. And I found great joy in that. Yeah, actually, as you were describing, I sort of thought like it's not shot in tectocolor, but he makes his own tectocolor. Exactly, it was color choice. Which I like because it's just a combination of, it's not crucial to the story, necessarily, but neither was tectocolor always crucial to every story that was Bella Drama that was told in it. But it infused it with something else as just the natural substance of it. And then I'd like to mention it's really in blue because I think another thing he plays with are the particular color, fashion, and technological idiosyncrasies of 2004. Yeah. He has some actually really funny jokes about old cell phones. And I thought old cell phone jokes were just, I've been tapped. Not turned off as life in them yet. Yes, life in them yet. And yeah, I mean, in terms of compositions, there are some moments where the camera pauses a little bit, just sort of how you can, so you can appreciate the arrangement of elements in the frame. And it's interesting he's actually, I believe, working with a new DP this time. Which I forget the name, I'm sorry, but, yeah, it seems to seem kind of, you know, forging new collaborations even in a film that's this much of a kind of summation of his past work. So yeah, there's plenty of life in Pedro yet. Definitely. And also self-deprecation because in the fictionalized 2004 story, the filmmaker is a cult director. Yes, she has to explain what a cult director is. It's almost like-- Yes, to a doctor who's sort of like, do you mean like, is it evangelical? Or is it, you know? And yeah, that's really very, very draw. So yeah, I mean, a bit of Christmas. I mean, it's something I'm going to want to revisit. And for some reason, I don't know if this makes sense, but it's kind of virtuosity you were describing. Maybe you think of Mozart a little, just this sense that an old Ovar has like this music in his head. Yeah. And he's just playing it. Yeah. And playing with it. Yeah. And I think the film is almost, it's kind of like a Rubik's Cube for "Omadova fans." Like, you can just-- it's all his little glimmers of his work, it's that you need to kind of put together in the way that it's sort of assembled in his head. And yeah, it's total gameplay, I think. Yeah. Oh, yeah, one other note is that Victoria Lengra is in this film and is also, of course, in a major role in the beloved. Just very different here. And less than one worry, Rossi Depalma does make the term. Yeah. Wouldn't be right if she'd-- The Rossi Depalma, yeah. So that's bitter Christmas. Let's talk about a movie that I'm not sure what section is. And I think it's maybe-- It's in competition. One of the lower key entries in competition. Now I feel especially bad about skipping it earlier. But yeah, let's talk about a woman's life directed by Charlene Bourgeois. Takeda. OK. Which is that not just the best French name you have ever heard? And actually, very appropriate to the character. I live to be bourgeois and Takeda. So-- Yeah. I'd rather Takeda be part of the bourgeois part, definitely. So-- and this is a film-- this is an interesting kind of movie, because it's this kind of episodic treatment of-- I mean-- A woman's life? That's what it says on the tin. Exactly. A very skilled surgeon who kind of has almost runs her own little unit, but there's like this hospital management shake-up move that's happening. And she's played by Leo Drucker. What happens then is you're just kind of following through her job and her life and various discoveries. But I guess what struck me about is I basically liked it, but it also felt a little TV. Yes. It's small. And it's a huge promotion to competition. Her first-- this is her second film, Charling Bourgeois-Takeda's first film, was in critics week, a couple years back, a film called I Nace in Love, which starred Annez Demoustier as almost that kind of parody of a French winsom manic pixie dream girl, which seems absolutely kind of intolerable for its first half. And then turns out to be a surprisingly slight kind of take down of that character and her eventual kind of self-effacement. Yeah, a film that I was initially very hostile to, and that won me over. I was felt far more warmly towards this film from the get-go, but it's maybe a less surprising or revampish-it-tonal exercise. But I think it's mainly been elevated to can competition status by the fact that Lea Drucker plays the lead. And Lea Drucker is in a-- I think a kind of position in French cinema now, where she is being groomed as like-- I don't know-- the next Isabelle Hupere, or she's just-- I think she's just coming off her second Cesar Best Actress win, which she got for Dominic Moles, Procedural Police thriller Case 1, 3, 9, which premiered in competition here last year. [BLANK_AUDIO] I think she won another saizard for the film custody a few years back. She was obviously tremendous in that Catherine Braia film last summer a few years ago. She's really just in the zone right now and I think you know every performance she gives is utterly kind of complete and interesting and and kind of elevates even a fairly ordinary film as was the case with the Dominic you know the perfectly proficient but maybe also non-competition worthy film last year. And it's it's similar I think with with the woman's life I don't think the film would amount to a whole lot without her but she really does such a kind of detailed essay on kind of 50-something professional womanhood and this is the kind of protagonist or subject that would only be kind of centered right now pretty much in French commercial cinema you know a middle-aged doctor who has specifically kind of rejected the conventional family life expects of her to to focus on her career. She has a husband and and step children but has never pointedly never wanted children of her own and rather resents her colleagues who as it turns out in in particular her kind of main right hand deputy resents them when they put you know their families ahead of their professional concerns and so she's in in some ways quite a distance and and prickly character but she is I think drawn with so much kind of specificity and and particularity of background and of outlook and and of profession that I think she becomes very immediate to us and part of that is through what for her is is very surprising and and out of character romantic development when she meets a young a young novelist played by Melanie Thierry who initially asks to observe her at work for for research purposes on her next book and they it turns out there is a kind of immediate attraction between them that blossoms you know very impulsively and unexpectedly to a lesbian affair and that's partly the thrust of the film but also it's it's also just one side block because it's less interested in the relationship than it is in this one particular woman and how she kind of designs her her life around this kind of unexpected side diversion and how she yeah kind of keeps her life on course despite it and I found I found that very compelling and very surprising in how ordinarily the the film treats the affair as just one more development in the life of the middle-aged professional and not anything particularly either passionate or salacious or it takes all these all these matters very much in hand and so does Leia Drucker's performance yeah and so while it's not particularly great or innovative or or revelatory film but it's also a film about someone we don't actually see as often as you might expect in in in the modern cinema and for that reason to me it's actually a little bit special yeah I you know I I appreciate that framing is especially because this affair is important to her but it's not centering and it's not also supposed to be like bet you didn't think she would have this life you know it is just a facet alongside like another facet which is like taking care of her mother you know who like actually a lot of movies have noticed this year probably everyone has noticed you know is going through a lot of dementia a lot of the men's chick going in the movies this year it's sort of omnipresent which honestly in life everyone's dealing with it you know so I appreciated that and there was also a way in which I felt her her mother being there her mother also I think I don't know if she was a doctor too or but or something I felt like she also had some yes I can't remember but yeah also had a life an agency of her own before she became this burden yeah and everyone else and it it sort of quite poignantly reminds you that you know this is this is coming for Lea Drucker's character to just as as it probably is for all of us and yeah I mean just I'll just obviously echo you with about Lea Drucker who I hope someday to like write a feature about where I want to open it with like nobody thinks like Lea Drucker just in a sense that you see your on screen and I just always love an actor who can show you what they're thinking exactly and I also think that she's kind of good at being a bad liar really good and I love that too because that's sort of humanizing although I guess good liars are humans too but anyway so yeah she's great great to watch I guess my wish for the film is that there was just more of it you know like yes I would in a way I would love to just throw down the gauntlet and make us a three hour film it's it is small and it's a little bit timid in it's in its scope and it's and it's formal design and it's I'll look I mean I think the obvious comparison and maybe watch Shaline Bush's attack is I just have to keep saying that name in full because I enjoy it so much what she's kind of shooting for is is the Mia Hanson love of kind of films like Things to come and one fine morning rather than the Mia Hanson love I like less who makes films like Bergen Island and Maya just very very much that kind of airy organic kind of character portraiture I think she doesn't quite have the the kind of formal mastery that Hanson love does and the confidence of image making and and rhythm building around very kind of ordinary stories and lives and as you say the film does feel a little bit television or and you know it's perfectly handsomely shot and it comes in at like a brisk you know 100 minutes or so which we certainly appreciate in this can of very very long films but I would like to see her in her next film if she's if she is suddenly going to be a can competition mainstay which which could happen could not at all you know the vagaries of Terry Framose programming are on cruel mysteries to us all but if if she does I would like to see her yeah kind of expand her visual language a bit yeah and expand the scope of her storytelling because I think she's very good at fine grain details but yeah I think she can I think she can do something bigger yeah I would agree with that so that again is a woman's life which I honestly didn't remember was in competitions which isn't it was I think the very first film up in competition as well which also felt like quite an unfair slot to to give it because it's right it seems sort of destined to be kind of swamped by the much bigger or to your statements in in the liner yeah and is there a title off the beaten path can be anything that you just want to shout out to for people not to miss I think you mentioned you've already talked about another episode but I really loved Gaba the documentary the kind of boyhood style documentary in Cansey in this year that I think was a bit off the beaten track and really special and there's a film in critics week called La Gradeva that I think is really remarkable a kind of collective coming of age portrait and documenting a a French kind of school tour group in in Italy over the course of the summer that kind of details the the students you know various lives and loves and catastrophes and that also has you know has a lot of time for the teachers as well it sort of reminded me a bit of the kind of workshoped organic feel of you know long can't haze film the class but with a slightly more substantial woozy Italian atmosphere to it nice so I think that's a that's a sidebar standout for me very good I'm no thanks for it because I had heard from a couple people but that really makes me want to see it now that was like La Gradeva and then and Gaba so we'll we'll wrap there until the next festival but thank you guys who take the time as always always a pleasure you've been listening to the last thing I saw with host Nicholas Rippold you can support the podcast by signing up at repul.substac.com thank you for listening