17/07/2025 - Roschdy Zem, Julia Faure, and youngsters Bonnie Bouriche Troutaud and Lilas-Rose Gilberti star in the cast of this feature staged by Sésame Films and Mille et Une Productions

Actors Roschdy Zem (© Fabrizio de Gennaro for Cineuropa - fadege.it, @fadege.it) and Julia Faure (© Georges Biard)

Christine Paillard has been shooting Billie Melody, her first solo feature film after A Smile Doesn’t Lie (co-directed by Chad Chenouga and released last year), since 30 June.

The cast stars Roschdy Zem (awarded the collective male acting performance prize in Cannes in 2006 for Days of Glory and the 2020 Best Actor César for Oh Mercy!, nominated four times in the Best Supporting Actor category and recently acclaimed in Winter in Sokcho and 13 Days, 13 Nights), Julia Faure (nominated for the 2013 Best Newcomer César and also at her best in The Beast, among other movies), Bonnie Bouriche Troutaud (making her first feature film appearance) and Lilas-Rose Gilberti (notably seen in The Ice Tower, Consent and Last Summer).

Written by Christine Paillard herself and Chad Chenouga, the story focuses on 14-year-old Billie who witnesses a violent argument between her parents the day before her father dies. She moves away to start a new life with her mother, a tenebrous beauty with a troubling personality, and her brother who’s in the throes of a teenage crisis. But how can she grieve and grow when she’s haunted by doubts?

Billie Melody is being produced by Florence Borelly on behalf of Sésame Films and by Édouard Mauriat for Mille et Une Productions, and has been pre-purchased by Ciné+ and France Télévisions. The feature also enjoys support from the Pays de la Loire region, where the film is being shot (in Nantes and the surrounding area) until 31 July, with Julien Hirsch (awarded the César in his speciality in 2007 and nominated again in 2012) heading up photography. Distribution in French cinemas will fall to The Jokers Films.

For the record, Sésame Films recently steered production on Sylvain Desclous’ Grand Expectations and Sarah Leonor’s documentary Ceux de la nuit.

(Translated from French)