18/05/2023 - CANNES 2023: In a film that is alive, subtle and endearing, secrets are revealed under the summer sun of Corsica, where Catherine Corsini explores the question of finding one’s place in the world

Esther Gohourou, Suzy Bemba and Aïssatou Diallo Sagna in Homecoming

"Why did you never tell us?", "I have no memories, it’s not easy to forget". On the path someone walks throughout your lives, the individual always meets the collective; a person sometimes has to move from one shore to the other, or take on a series of sharp turns, and often, they must unveil the unsaid things in their past in order to discover the future that is shaping up on the horizon. All of this and more, to try and understand where exactly their place is in a family, in society, among emotions and generations. Catherine Corsini tackles all of these universal questions with great skill in the very well accomplished Homecoming [+see also:
trailer
interview: Catherine Corsini
interview: Suzy Bemba
film profile], discovered in Competition at the 76th Cannes Film Festival. A film in which the director focuses on the vibrant ages of 18 and 15, for one warm summer by the water. We plunge like her alongside these two sisters as they take a trip with their mother to the Corsica she left 15 years prior with her children (a departure seen in a dramatic and mysterious prologue).

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"Did daddy have an accent like that?" Kheididja (Aïssatou Diallo Sagna) has accepted to continue her work as a nanny at her Parisian employers’ holiday destination. Housed in a mobile-home at a nearby camping site, she took this opportunity to bring her two daughters with her: Jessica (Suzy Bemba) and Farah (Esther Gohourou). The trio seems very close-knit and loving at first glance, but as it goes for the postcard landscapes of Corsica, the truth turns out to be more complex. Floating over the family is the ghost of the two girls’ dead father, as they progressively immerse themselves in the summery environment around them (each by herself and according to their respective personalities — Jessica like a top-of-the-class student, and Farah more wildly): the beach, the creeks, the Corsicans, the villa with swimming pool belonging to their mother’s employers, and Gaia (Lomane De Dietrich), their very independent eldest daughter… But Jessica’s quest for her roots and her desire to break with her present (her social milieu) will have extreme consequences. Secrets and lies are unveiled, forever changing the relationships of all involved…

With small touches and a very strong sense of nuances, Catherine Corsini (who wrote the script together with Naïla Guiguet) paints a very true-to-life portrait of maternal, filial, sisterly and romantic bonds, and skillfully weaves together a tale intertwining three subplots into a cinema direct approach that evokes a feeling of total comfort: people swim, eat ice cream, fish in the river, dance in the evening. But where there is a lot of sun, there are also strong shadows… Contrasts which are also those of the black skin of the three protagonists, but this question of race, without being entirely set aside, isn’t really a question at all in a film whose humanistic values are much more universal, and which beautifully captures the emotions, especially those of youth, as embodied by two wonderful actresses.

Produced by Chaz Productions and co-produced by Le Pacte and France 3 Cinéma, Homecoming is sold internationally by Playtime.

(Translated from French)

Photogallery 16/05/2023: Cannes 2023 - Homecoming

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Catherine Corsini, Aïssatou Diallo Sagna, Elisabeth Perez, Virginie Ledoyen, Cédric Appietto, Lomane de Dietrich, Suzy Bemba
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