2022 Cannes: Mathieu Vadepied’s “Father & Soldier” is the Un Certain Regard Opener

Mathieu Vadepied‘s Father & Soldier has been selected as the Un Certain Regard opener. A film that we had slotted for a release in 2023 will indeed cap off what will be twenty selections and will have some big shoes to fill if we compare it to last year’s (other war-themed film) Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle.

Vadepied’s sophomore film began filming sometime in September and this becomes his second film to be featured on the Croisette – his debut film La Vie en grand was the closing film for the Critics’ Week section in 2015. Vadepied was a cinematographer on Jacques Audiard’s Read My Lips and would would get to work with the star (and producer) of this film with the hugely popular The Intouchables – he was the cinematographer there as well.

The story opens during the First World War, in 1917, in the French colony of Senegal. Sy stars as Bakary, a father who enlists in the army to stick by Thierno, his 17-year-old son, who was recruited against his will. Together, father and son must fight the First World War in the trenches in France. Thierno is ready to sacrifice his life to fight for France, a country he knows little about. His father, meanwhile, sets off to protect him at all costs.