Winner of the Un Certain Regard at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret’s The Worst Ones arrives in the U.S. with a certain amount of clout. A knotty meta-narrative about the ethics of filmmaking, it takes its title from the non-professional actors who are cast in an independent film shot in the working-class town of Boulogne-sur-Mer. Tracking the production of the film-within-a-film, Akoka and Gueret spotlight the ambiguities and exploitation that propel one’s search for realism in art.
That someone is the film’s director, Gabriel (Johan Heldenbergh), who is belatedly making his debut with Pissing in the North Wind, a seeming social-realist depiction of teenagers coping with tragedy and, of course, teen pregnancy. Perhaps invoking Truffaut and the Dardenne brothers, Gabriel’s insistence on casting non-professionals highlights The Worst Ones‘ most obvious satirical target: openly questioning if Gabriel is exploiting these...
That someone is the film’s director, Gabriel (Johan Heldenbergh), who is belatedly making his debut with Pissing in the North Wind, a seeming social-realist depiction of teenagers coping with tragedy and, of course, teen pregnancy. Perhaps invoking Truffaut and the Dardenne brothers, Gabriel’s insistence on casting non-professionals highlights The Worst Ones‘ most obvious satirical target: openly questioning if Gabriel is exploiting these...
- 3/24/2023
- by Christian Gallichio
- The Film Stage
Street casting — the process of plucking non-professional actors from their everyday lives to play prominent screen roles, often as observationally scripted versions of themselves — is a process that has yielded rich rewards for many a French film in recent years. Titles from Laurent Cantet’s “The Class” to Frédéric Baillif’s “La Mif” have thrived off the vibrant spontaneity of their enterprisingly sourced young ensembles, but how often is a degree of exploitation the price paid for such diamond-in-the-rough authenticity? A lively, spiky and elastically metatextual debut feature from Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret, “The Worst Ones” asks this and other questions of a practice it too perpetuates: The internal artistic conflict that ensues is very much the point.
A surprise winner of the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes in May, “The Worst Ones” thoughtfully applies the filmmakers’ shared background in casting to its somewhat inside-baseball premise: a film-within-a-film...
A surprise winner of the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes in May, “The Worst Ones” thoughtfully applies the filmmakers’ shared background in casting to its somewhat inside-baseball premise: a film-within-a-film...
- 12/19/2022
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Kino Lorber has acquired the French-language Cannes award winner “The Worst Ones” for a U.S. and Canada theatrical release following its North American premiere at the Toronto film festival in September.
The French drama marks the feature debut of Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret, the directing duo behind the 2016 short film “Chasse Royale.” It premired earlier this year at Cannes, where it took top honors in the Un Certain Regard category.
“The Worst Ones” follows the production of a feature film whose director seeks to cast actors from a housing project in the suburbs of Boulogne-Sur-Mer in northern France. Four working class teenagers, considered “the worst ones” by the locals,” are chosen to star in the project. Throughout the process of auditioning, rehearsing and shooting, “jealousies are stoked, lines are crossed, and ethical questions arise, with thought-provoking and at times darkly funny results,” the official description puts reads.
Also...
The French drama marks the feature debut of Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret, the directing duo behind the 2016 short film “Chasse Royale.” It premired earlier this year at Cannes, where it took top honors in the Un Certain Regard category.
“The Worst Ones” follows the production of a feature film whose director seeks to cast actors from a housing project in the suburbs of Boulogne-Sur-Mer in northern France. Four working class teenagers, considered “the worst ones” by the locals,” are chosen to star in the project. Throughout the process of auditioning, rehearsing and shooting, “jealousies are stoked, lines are crossed, and ethical questions arise, with thought-provoking and at times darkly funny results,” the official description puts reads.
Also...
- 8/17/2022
- by Harper Lambert
- The Wrap
Pyramide Films handles sales.
Kino Lorber has acquired all US and anglophone Canadian rights to Cannes Un Certain Regard winner and upcoming TIFF selection The Worst Ones.
‘The Worst Ones’: Cannes Review
Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret make their feature directorial debuts on the drama about the director of a film production in northern France who ruffles feathers over the casting of four local working class teenagers.
Mallory Wanecque, Timéo Mahaut, Johan Heldenbergh, Loic Pech, Mélina Vanderplancke, Esther Archambault, and Matthias Jacquin star. Akoka, Gueret, and Eleonore Gurrey co-wrote the feature and Marine Alaric and Frédéric Jouve produced for Les Films Velvet.
Kino Lorber has acquired all US and anglophone Canadian rights to Cannes Un Certain Regard winner and upcoming TIFF selection The Worst Ones.
‘The Worst Ones’: Cannes Review
Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret make their feature directorial debuts on the drama about the director of a film production in northern France who ruffles feathers over the casting of four local working class teenagers.
Mallory Wanecque, Timéo Mahaut, Johan Heldenbergh, Loic Pech, Mélina Vanderplancke, Esther Archambault, and Matthias Jacquin star. Akoka, Gueret, and Eleonore Gurrey co-wrote the feature and Marine Alaric and Frédéric Jouve produced for Les Films Velvet.
- 8/17/2022
- by Screen staff
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Kino Lorber has acquired all rights in U.S. and anglophone Canada to Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret’s drama The Worst Ones, which was awarded the top prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section and will make its North American premiere at TIFF.
Set in the suburbs of Boulogne-Sur-Mer in northern France, the feature captures a film within a film as it follows the production of a movie whose director turns to the local housing project for casting. Eager to capture performances of gritty authenticity, the director selects four working class teenagers to act in the film to the surprise and consternation of the local community, who question the director’s choice of “the worst ones”. As the director and crew audition, rehearse, film, and interact with their hand-picked cast, jealousies are stoked, lines are crossed, and ethical questions arise.
Written by Akoka, Gueret, and Eleonore Gurrey, pic...
Set in the suburbs of Boulogne-Sur-Mer in northern France, the feature captures a film within a film as it follows the production of a movie whose director turns to the local housing project for casting. Eager to capture performances of gritty authenticity, the director selects four working class teenagers to act in the film to the surprise and consternation of the local community, who question the director’s choice of “the worst ones”. As the director and crew audition, rehearse, film, and interact with their hand-picked cast, jealousies are stoked, lines are crossed, and ethical questions arise.
Written by Akoka, Gueret, and Eleonore Gurrey, pic...
- 8/17/2022
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
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