International Competition Award: FUCK THE POLIS by Rita Azevedo Gomes

Georges de Beauregard International Award: FRÍO METAL by Clemente Castor

Special mention of the International Competition Jury: COBRE by Nicolás Pereda

French Competition Award: BONNE JOURNÉE by Pauline Bastard

Georges de Beauregard National Award: HORS-CHAMP, LES OMBRES by Anna Dubosc, Gustavo de Mattos Jahn

Cnap (National Centre for Visual Arts) Award: DES MILLÉNAIRES D’ABSENCE by Philippe Rouy

Special mention of the Cnap (National Centre for Visual Arts) Jury: L’AMOUR SUR LE CHEMIN DES RONCETTES by Sophie Roger

First Film Award: FANTAISIE by Isabel Pagliai

Special mention of the First Film Competition Jury: LOS CRUCES by Julián Galay

Special mention of the First Film Competition Jury: SI NOUS HABITONS UN ÉCLAIR by Louise Chevillotte

Claudia Cardinale Foundation Award: FERNLICHT by Johanna Schorn Kalinsky

Cine+ Distribution support Award in partnership with GNCR: MORTE E VIDA MADALENA by Guto Parente

Flash Competition Award: گل‌های شب ِدریا by Maryam Tafakory

Special mention of the Flash Competition Jury: A PRELUDE by Wendelien van Oldenborgh

Special mention of the Flash Competition Jury: CONTROL ANATOMY by Mahmoud Alhaj

Special mention of the Flash Competition Jury: LENGUA MUERTA by José Jiménez

Alice Guy Award: ABORTION PARTY by Julia Mellen

Renaud Victor Award: BULAKNA by Leonor Noivo

Special mention of the Renaud Victor Jury: SI NOUS HABITONS UN ÉCLAIR by Louise Chevillotte

High School Award: NEXT LIFE by Tenzin Phuntsog

Special mention of the High School Jury: MIRACULOUS ACCIDENT by Assaf Gruber

The Second Chance School Award: NEXT LIFE by Tenzin Phuntsog

Special mention of the Second Chance School Jury: JACOB’S HOUSE by Lucas Kane

Audience Award: LA JUVENTUD ES UNA ISLA by Louise Ernandez

International Competition Award: FUCK THE POLIS by Rita Azevedo Gomes

Georges de Beauregard International Award: FRÍO METAL by Clemente Castor

Special mention of the International Competition Jury: COBRE by Nicolás Pereda

French Competition Award: BONNE JOURNÉE by Pauline Bastard

Georges de Beauregard National Award: HORS-CHAMP, LES OMBRES by Anna Dubosc, Gustavo de Mattos Jahn

Cnap (National Centre for Visual Arts) Award: DES MILLÉNAIRES D’ABSENCE by Philippe Rouy

Special mention of the Cnap (National Centre for Visual Arts) Jury: L’AMOUR SUR LE CHEMIN DES RONCETTES by Sophie Roger

First Film Award: FANTAISIE by Isabel Pagliai

Special mention of the First Film Competition Jury: LOS CRUCES by Julián Galay

Special mention of the First Film Competition Jury: SI NOUS HABITONS UN ÉCLAIR by Louise Chevillotte

Claudia Cardinale Foundation Award: FERNLICHT by Johanna Schorn Kalinsky

Cine+ Distribution support Award in partnership with GNCR: MORTE E VIDA MADALENA by Guto Parente

Flash Competition Award: گل‌های شب ِدریا by Maryam Tafakory

Special mention of the Flash Competition Jury: A PRELUDE by Wendelien van Oldenborgh

Special mention of the Flash Competition Jury: CONTROL ANATOMY by Mahmoud Alhaj

Special mention of the Flash Competition Jury: LENGUA MUERTA by José Jiménez

Alice Guy Award: ABORTION PARTY by Julia Mellen

Renaud Victor Award: BULAKNA by Leonor Noivo

Special mention of the Renaud Victor Jury: SI NOUS HABITONS UN ÉCLAIR by Louise Chevillotte

High School Award: NEXT LIFE by Tenzin Phuntsog

Special mention of the High School Jury: MIRACULOUS ACCIDENT by Assaf Gruber

The Second Chance School Award: NEXT LIFE by Tenzin Phuntsog

Special mention of the Second Chance School Jury: JACOB’S HOUSE by Lucas Kane

Audience Award: LA JUVENTUD ES UNA ISLA by Louise Ernandez

In Lean On The Wall (FID 2021), Jacques Meilleurat portrayed himself as a man recounting a childhood and adolescence stolen by adults who had sexually abused him. Even then, the enigma of self-portraiture was already present. From that raw and harrowing film, Si petite emerges as a kind of reprise, a variation that heightens the tension and emotion to an even greater degree. This feat is achieved through the eponymous text by Frédéric Boyer. Si petite: the title refers to an eight-year-old girl savagely murdered by her parents after years of abuse. The crime, committed in 2009, made national headlines and left a lasting impression on the writer, to the point of haunting him for years. The text he publishes in 2024 is not primarily concerned with recounting the child’s ordeal and murder—although it does so, with narrative control that chills the reader and feeds our morbid appetite for such stories—but rather with questioning what this reveals about our desire for stories, and our relationship to evil. Nothing else is heard but Boyer’s words, spoken by Meilleurat in an almost uninterrupted breath, in a low, cavernous voice barely above a whisper, as if speaking to himself. Giving voice to a text, allowing a piece of writing to be heard: a task cinema has often undertaken. Meilleurat’s approach, however—building on and radicalising what he had done in Appuyé au mur—is something altogether more unsettling. Alone with the text, alone both in front of and behind the camera, the filmmaker stages and films himself as a writer. He quite literally inhabits the role, if not of Frédéric Boyer, then at least of the writer penning the words voiced on screen. He does so through shots that carve fragments of visibility out of a darkness blacker than the blackest ink. The visible: his face, his hand writing, the script filling the pages of a notebook. Nothing more—or almost nothing. Once again, a self-portrait. But not as a victim of evil: as an artist-narrator, striving to come to terms with his own fascination for evil, with the pleasure of telling it; narrating also as a way to examine his conscience, to confront—through the solitary act of confession—the evil within him and the limits of his own humanity. The text is of rare power, of crystalline beauty. Fixing the viewer to the words and to the flesh of the man who, as both writer and reader, writes and speaks them, the film carries us with the urgency of its momentum: that of the text, of the writer in the act of writing, doubled by the filmmaker’s own urgency to film it—barely read. What remains is the unfathomable mystery of embodiment, illuminated by one of the writer’s phrases echoed by the filmmaker: “I dream that I’m handling unspooled films with my hands, that I’m both the projector and the spectator.” And the screen: leaning against the wall, burned by light.

Cyril Neyrat

Interview

Jacques Meilleurat

Si petite is based on a book by Frédéric Boyer, published in 2024 by Gallimard. What drew you to this story as the basis for your film?

What convinced me was his qualities as a writer. I was struck by the purity and simplicity of the writing.

How did you treat the original text in writing your screenplay?

Anything in the story I didn’t feel comfortable saying, I left out.

You portray yourself in the role of the writer at work. Why this choice, with some variations as the film unfolds?

That was how I saw it—I had to take the writer’s place. I used to be Bressonian, but I’ve no interest in the cult of Bresson. I didn’t want the film to lose its intensity. I don’t know—maybe there are some dead shots.

Si petite is filmed in fixed shots, in black and white, with a simple interplay of light and shadow in certain sequences. Why this pared-down direction?

It remains a mystery to me. I moved forward in a kind of unconsciousness about what I was doing.

Why that particular sequence on cinema in the edit, and why those two specific excerpts?

I was leafing through some books—Le Cinéma fantastique et ses mythologies by Gérard Lenne, for instance… I wanted, just for the span of a short sequence, to revive that old light and the feeling that must have come with it back then.

Could one see Si petite, beyond the news story, as a meditation on our relationship to evil?

Yes—and quite quickly, you can sense a reflection on the forces of evil. The writer’s relationship to evil, and to love.

The text is heard in voice over, except at the end of the film where you appear on screen and speak. What meaning does this crucial sequence hold?

I had to show the narrator at some point reading that beautiful and terrible passage: “under the weight of the evil committed.”

Si petite touches on some recurring themes in your work and seems to carry a particular resonance for you.

I like stories that unsettle, based on true events. Moments that feel real, where life is palpable—where the sense of detail comes through.

Interview by Olivier Pierre