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Daily 2025
Focus on the French director who presents "À pied d'oeuvre" in Venice
(2025, France, 92')
A pied d’œuvre portrays the voluntary — and yet dizzying — descent of a man into the margins of society. Bastien Bouillon plays a renowned photographer who, disillusioned with the superficiality of the art world, gives it all up to pursue writing. But his quest for authenticity leads him to face poverty, isolation, and the gradual erosion of his bourgeois identity. A powerful, uncompromising portrait of what it truly means to pay the price of freedom.
Valérie Donzelli (Épinal, 1973) is a director, actress, and screenwriter, and one of the most versatile figures in contemporary French cinema. She made her directorial debut with La reine des pommes (2009), but it was with La guerre est déclarée (2011) that she gained international recognition, presenting at Cannes’ Semaine de la Critique a work that was both deeply personal and stylistically bold. Her career continued with films such as Main dans la main (2012), Marguerite et Julien (in competition at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival), Notre Dame (2019), and L’amour et les forêts (again presented at Cannes in 2023). In her films, Donzelli sensitively explores the body, the couple, illness, and the transformation of the individual, alternating formal lightness with emotional depth. With À pied d’œuvre, she delivers an intense reflection on identity, renunciation, and the value of freedom, reaffirming her ability to reinvent herself with each new film.
Daily 2025
Focus on the French director who presents "À pied d'oeuvre" in Venice
