20/03/2025 - Wholly shot in Creole on Réunion Island, Grégory Lucilly’s first feature film paints a poignant portrait of siblings fighting to rebuild themselves in spite of being abandoned

Maxime Calicharane and Brillana Domitille Clain in Marmaille

Grégory Lucilly’s debut feature film, Marmaille, was screened in the Love International Film Festival in Mons, where it took part in the 40th Edition Competition which saw it walking away with the Jury Film Crush Award. Thomas (Maxime Calicharane) and Audrey (Brillana Domitille Clain), who are 15 and 16 years old respectively, are brutally rejected by their mother who unceremoniously throws them out of her home without a second thought for their future. Effectively living on the streets, the siblings come under the care of social services who don’t have any clear guidelines for this kind of situation and so plan to place them in care. Needless to say, it’s a double blow for these teens who’ve already been torn from their home and isolated from their family. So when Audrey explains that she’s crossed paths with their dad a handful of times, who’s been back on the island for a few months, a decision needs to be made: they’ll have to reconnect with this parent whom they know nothing about and who turns out to have started over with another family, far away from them. Audrey and Thomas share their destiny, but each of them forges their own path to find their way.

Thomas is passionate about breakdancing and is particularly talented. In fact, the film opens on a dance floor in a rush of moving bodies. Thomas has just won a competition, he seems to have a bright future ahead of him, far away from the island, no doubt. And as his life falls apart, he holds on to his dream, helped by a variety of public bodies. Dance is a language through which he can express rebellion, externalise brutality and impose himself in a society which hasn’t made room for him thus far. It’s also the focus of a handful of striking scenes, where body movements speak louder than words ever could, thanks to the staggering talent of Maxime Calicharane, who was a dancer in real-life before this film and who’s now a real actor off the back of it.

Young baby-faced mother Audrey, who’s very convincingly played by Brillana Domitille Clain, carries the full weight of her premature parenthood on her frail shoulders. The inevitably immature father wavers between absenteeism and sudden opportunism when the young woman is granted housing. Deprived of a functional family model, Audrey can’t help but repeat patterns which are as hackneyed as they are flawed and which eventually lead her to fail. Marmaille, in Creole, means kids who emerge over the course of overstretched adults’ lives, kids who are sacrificed to maintain a fragile balance. And bringing la marmaille into the world is a girl’s fate, a destiny which Audrey resists with all her might.

The film doesn’t slide into pathos, nor does it shy away from depicting the hostile world in which Thomas and Audrey are trying to survive. It’s a realistic, human portrait which doesn’t exoticize the paradisiacal island, showing its darker sides and making them universal, whilst also sometimes revealing its little rays of light.

Marmaille was produced by Ciné Nominé, in co-production with Wrap Productions and Le Bureau Films (France). International sales are managed by The Bureau Sales while distribution in France - where the film was released in December - falls to Pan Distribution.

(Translated from French)