19/03/2025 - The writing residency has selected Céline Rouzet and Hélène Bararuzunza, alongside Yaonan Liu, Aurélie Reinhorn, Violette Gitton, Lili Cazals, Pierre Denoits, Antoine Chapon and Alexey Evstigneev

Director-screenwriter Céline Rouzet and screenwriter Hélène Bararuzunza, selected with Nuits Blanches

The Ice Tower [+see also:
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interview: Lucile Hadžihalilović
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interview: Jonathan Millet
interview: Pauline Seigland
film profile] by Jonathan Millet, Savages [+see also:
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interview: Red Carpet @ European Film …
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film profile] by Jean-Baptiste Durand, A Tale of Love and Desire [+see also:
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film profile] by Leyla Bouzid and, among other movies in post-production L’Engloutie by Louise Hémon (read our article) and Filles du Ciel by Bérangère Mc Neese (article), without forgetting Sylvère Petit’s film in production La Baleine (article), are just some of the successful titles which have passed through Groupe Ouest’s Annual Selection writing coaching residency, which is the leading initiative of its kind and which has just unveiled the lucky few joining its class of 2025.

Stealing focus among the eight titles selected for this year’s Brittany-based, nine-month residency  (consisting of four sessions between April and December) are two second fiction feature film projects: Nuits Blanches by Céline Rouzet (highly acclaimed in Venice’s 2023 Orizzonti line-up thanks to For Night Will Come [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Céline Rouzet
film profile]), who co-wrote the film with Hélène Bararuzunza (also the co-writer of La mission de l’espace which is due for release in French cinemas on 25 June), and Motherland by Chinese director Yaonan Liu (whose movie The Great Phuket was screened in the 2024 Berlinale’s Generation section).

The other selected works are all first fiction feature film projects, notably including Les Cicatrisés de Saint Sauvignac by Violette Gitton (nominated for 2025’s Best Short Film César via Ce qui appartient à César), Tympan by Aurélie Reinhorn (triumphant in Clermont Ferrand in 2020 thanks to Raout Pacha and in 2022 via Son Altesse Protocole) and Princesses by Lili Cazals (selected in Clermont Ferrand’s international competition of 2025 via Les talons de ma mère). Other lucky projects include Georges a un plan by Pierre Denoits, Les larmes d'Achille by Antoine Chapon (who competed in Sundance in 2021 with My Own Landscapes and in the 2025 Berlinale’s Expanded Forum via Les vergers) and Meat by Russian director Alexey Evstigneev (selected for Clermont Ferrand’s 2024 national competition with his animated short Father’s Letters).

The projects are as follows:

Georges a un plan - Pierre Denoits
It’s autumn in the mountains and a fox has bitten a camper. Or maybe it was a wolf. Two agents from the French Office of Biodiversity - Georges and Diane - go looking for the animal. The couple love each other as much as they love adventure and rifle shooting. They set up base-camp in a small refuge, living with Michelle, a melancholy shepherdess, and Hugues, a rough-hewn student. A mixture of tension and desire tugs at the quartet's heartstrings. While exploring a ravine, despite Michelle's warnings Georges drinks from a spring that doesn’t appear on any map. Their investigation soon derails.

Les larmes d'Achille - Antoine Chapon
Mini-synopsis being kept under wraps at the director’s request.

Meat - Alexey Evstigneev
Meat is a dystopia, revolving around the smooth running of a human meat factory on which the economy and well-being of the entire seaside town of N relies. In a town where everyone is forced to eat human meat, Vera’s factory-worker son is injured in a car accident. In order to save him, Vera and her husband have to find a volunteer willing to sacrifice themselves by becoming a meat product, thereby becoming a hero in exchange for a patriotic grant to pay for medical care. Vera is confronted with the system’s drawbacks and her convictions begin to crumble.

Motherland - Yaonan Liu
She escapes her difficult past by settling on an island in the Pacific. She hopes to find peace and quiet in this comfortable tourist bubble. During a sea dive, she discovers sunken ruins in a mysterious location. But back at the hotel, she develops a fever and experiences a series of terrifying nightmares. She thinks they're just dreams, until this subconscious space starts to intrude on her waking life.

Nuits Blanches - Céline Rouzet and Hélène Bararuzunza
A young French couple in their thirties called Julie and Max move into a luxurious, ultra-secure residence in a dangerous tropical capital where Max intends to kick-start his career. Julie follows him out of love, but she soon finds it hard to cope with the local expat environment and the asymmetrical relationship that exists with the local household staff. In trying to do the right thing, however, she triggers a chain reaction which threatens to upset the equilibrium: the balance of power shifts and fear takes hold of the expatriate group.

Tympan - Aurélie Reinhorn
Noémie is tasked with coaching a group of demotivated employees in an IKEA store. So as to help them reconnect with the company's values, she suggests an unorthodox game of role-play: pretending to be members of an ideal family in the store's fake living rooms. But no one has any happy family memories to draw on, and Noémie is starving.

Les Cicatrisés de Saint Sauvignac - Violette Gitton
Four redneck pre-teens get about their lives in a fictional Quebec town over the course of four seasons. Theirs is a mind-numbingly boring suburb, until an extraordinary water park is built on the other side of a disused railway line. It's a great way to break up the routine and for them to discover their own bodies and other people’s.

Princesses - Lili Cazals
The film’s mini-synopsis is being kept under wraps at the director’s request.

(Translated from French)