HOMEBOYS AT THE BEACH (LE CIEL, LES OISEAUX ET… TA MÈRE!) Special Presentations

A smash at the French box office this year, the auspicious first film from 22-yeor-old Djomel Bensoloh strikes a nonchalant, comic tone in its exploration of friendship and adolescence. Four childhood buddies from the Paris projects fake a documentary for a high school journalism contest. Their bogus video, praised for its “honesty, sensitivity and striking realism,” wins them the prize of a seaside resort vocation. Leaving the projects for the first time in their young lives, they arrive in Biorritz ready for good times – but ore soon bored and broke.

Eventually one of them succeeds with a girl the others dare him to pick up, while another falls for the girl next door. Confronted with a world they neither know nor manage very well, the boys’ vocation turns into a bittersweet adventure as their solidarity and friendship give way to jealousy and selfishness in this playfully perceptive coming-of-age story.