French cinematographer Marine Atlan know primarily 2018’s Caroline Poggi/Jonathan Vinel’s Jessica Forever and then 2022’s Carmen Jaquier’s Foudre has also become a sort of mainstay on the Croisette populating the Critics’ Week and Directors’ Fortnight section. After Simon Rieth’ Nos cérémonies (2022), The Rapture (2023), Queens of Drama (2024) and The Girl in the Snow (2025), she finally moved behind the camera. Establishing herself as one of the exciting visual eyes in European cinema, her tactile approach to light and movement favors emotional immediacy. She has two shorts under her belt (her 2019 Daniel was awarded a Special Mention in the 2019 Berlinale’s Generation Kplus section) and then moved into writing her debut feature. Working with sensorial template, the film is said to begin as a teen movie, then embracing melodrama with a style close to Douglas Sirk, and then something more lyrical soaked in mystery. Here is everything we know so far … for Marine Atlan’s La Gradiva.
The project first began on paper and was the winner of the Grand Prix du Scénario and the 2024 Fondation GAN Creation Prize in April of last year she began production in Paris, Naples and Pompeii.
Co-written alongside regular writing partner Anne Brouillet, this is about a small group of French high school students who embark on a school trip to Pompeii to explore its ruins and the bodies petrified by Vesuvius in 79 AD. In this ghost town, they are suddenly overwhelmed by a dizzying sensation. One by one, James, Toni, Suzanne, and their Latin teacher, Mrs. Mercier, succumb to desire, anger, and despair—completely surrendering to them and losing everything.
Street casting was mixed up with the likes of Julie Sokolowski and Antonia Buresi.
Les Films du Poisson’s Inès Daïen Dasi produced the film.
Seeing that Directors’ Fornight and Critic’s Week section announce their selections hours from now – we figure that there is a legit chance that we’ll see the title pop up. mk2 are handling sales.
