Annual Top Films Lists

Top 200 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2023: #127. Nora El Hourch’s HLM Pussy

Alexandre Chavance

Top 200 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2023: #127. Nora El Hourch’s HLM Pussy

Eric Lavallée

Published on January 11, 2023

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HLM Pussy

Among the feature film debuts high up on our list we find a scrappy French drama set in subsidized housing via short film filmmaker by Nora El Hourch. Her debut short in 2015’s Quelques secondes was selected for the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, TIFF and SXSW ’16. Bérénice Bejo, Leah Aubert, Medina Diarra and Salma Takaline star in HLM Pussy – a project that went into production this past November. HLM is the French acronym for Habitation à loyer modéré (low income housing). Manny Films’ Philippe Gompel produced.

Gist: This tell the story of Amina, Djeneba and Zineb. The three inseparable teenagers find themselves in hot water when they post a video on social networks identifying an assailant who attacked one of the three. The video draws a public outcry, and they will have to choose between continuing their fight or giving in to pressure.

Release Date/Prediction: Nora El Hourch could return to the Directors’ Fortnight section – but this needs to move rapidly in post.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).