Unless Venice pulls the carpet from underneath them, Ladj Ly won’t following Golden Lion comp preemed/penned Athena by Les Indésirables (aka Bâtiment 5). Instead, it’s Cameron Bailey’s TIFF that have nabbed the world premiere status for the film which is expected to hit French theatres in early December. Ly was one of the rare firs time filmmaker that landed a spot in the Palme d’Or comp and Les Misérables walked away with one of the top prizes (Jury Prize). Perhaps this sophomore film is a thematic or spiritual sequel to his 2019 debut. After Taika Waititi’s Next Goal Wins, this is the second title programmed for Toronto in what we call drip coffee one-off line-up unveilings. Les Indésirables was produced by SRAB Films’ Toufik Ayadi and Christophe Barral who gave us Saint Omer and Vortex.
Penned by Ly and Giordano Gederlini, this is set in the suburbs on the outskirts of Paris, this takes place after the sudden death of a town’s mayor, Pierre (Manenti), an idealistic young doctor, is appointed to replace him. He intends to continue the policy of his predecessor, who dreamed of rehabilitating this working-class neighbourhood. Haby (Diaw), a young French woman of Malian origin living in one of the dilapidated tower blocks, refuses to see her family driven out of the neighbourhood where she grew up. Toplined by creative partner Alexis Manenti and newbie Anta Diaw, this also features Jeanne Balibar, Steve Tientcheu and Aristote Luyindula.
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).
