Annual Top Films Lists

Top 150 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2020: #106. Mon légionnaire – Rachel Lang

Published on December 31, 2019

Mon Legionnaire

Director Rachel Lang snags Louis Garrel (who had a significant 2019, appearing in Polanski’s An Officer and a Spy and Gerwig’s Little Women, and will be seen in 2020 in new features by Woody Allen and Ildiko Enyedi) for her sophomore feature Mon Legionnaire (Our Men). Camille Cottin (Allied, 2016; On a Magical Night, 2019), Jean Le Peltier, Ina Marija Bartaite and Aleksandr Kuznetsov (Leto, 2018) co-star in the Belgian-French feature, produced by Jeremy Forni and Benoit Roland. Lang’s 2016 debut Baden Baden premiered at the 2016 Berlin International Film Festival in the Forum.

Gist: Mon Legionnaire focuses on several characters who join the French Foreign Legion and how they are shaped by the experience, including Nina, who follows boyfriend Vlad from Ukraine. While he’s stationed in Corsica, she meets the wife of Commander Maxime (Garrel).

Release Date/Prediction: Lang wrapped shooting in France and Morocco in mid-2019. We anticipate Lang will bow at Cannes in 2020, potentially in Directors’ Fortnight.

Nicholas Bell

Los Angeles based Nicholas Bell is IONCINEMA.com's Chief Film Critic and covers film festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, Cannes and TIFF. He is part of the critic groups on Rotten Tomatoes, The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA), the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and GALECA. His top 3 for 2021: France (Bruno Dumont), Passing (Rebecca Hall) and Nightmare Alley (Guillermo Del Toro). He was a jury member at the 2019 Cleveland International Film Festival.