GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD (ADIEU MONDE CRUEL) Discovery

North American Premiere

Félix de Givry (the lead of Mia Hansen-Løve’s EDEN, AFI FEST 2014) makes his directorial debut with this dreamy, fable-like teen romance, starring Milo Machado-Graner, known for his seismic performance as the blind son in the Academy Award®-winning ANATOMY OF A FALL. Fed up with being bullied by his high-school classmates, Otto (Machado-Graner) disappears from the world. But his furtive existence is soon discovered by Léna (Jane Beever), a student from his school. Rather than reveal his whereabouts, Léna becomes Otto’s witting accomplice, and out of their clandestine pact grows a precious friendship and eventually a budding romance. Melodiously narrated by French screen icon Françoise Lebrun, de Givry’s first feature aspires to the timelessness of a fairy tale, as his two young leads fashion a world apart from adults and peers to live out a fantasy of ardent independence. Stylistically, Givry’s charming coming–of-age harkens back to the French New Wave, shot on lusciously textured film, with a swooning orchestral score from Arnaud Toulon reminiscent of the stormy romantic motifs of Georges Delerue and Bernard Herrmann. Although not shy to wear his influences on his sleeve, de Givry brings a modern sensibility to this enchanting tale of teenage malaise, the yearning for connection and the beauty of finding one’s place in the world, even if only with one other person. –Travis Weedon