04/12/2025 - The first clapperboard on the French filmmaker’s debut feature, produced by Mabel Films and sold by Be For Films, is due to slam in January

Actress Guslagie Malanda (© 2022 Fabrizio de Gennaro for Cineuropa - fadege.it, @fadege.it)

Monday 19 January will see shooting begin in Benin on The Outsider Within, the debut feature film by Zoé Cauwet who turned heads with short films along the lines of Le Grand Calao (selected in Clermont-Ferrand’s national competition this year) and who directed the Girlsquad series.

The filmmaker has chosen Guslagie Malanda (nominated for the Best Newcomer César and Lumière awards in 2023 via Saint Omer [+see also:
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interview: Alice Diop
interview: Kayije Kagame
film profile] and also at her best in The Beast [+see also:
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interview: Bertrand Bonello
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interview: Dominik Moll
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Written by Zoé Cauwet herself, the story focuses on 35-year-old Jeanne whose job is preserving dead bodies. Adopted when she was a baby in Benin, she’s never worried about her roots. One day, however, she happens to see a documentary shot in Cotonou where a fleeting apparition leaves her speechless: she’s just seen her doppelganger. Shocked, she sets off in search of this figure and finds herself totally lost under the scorching sun of a country which is alien to her.

The Outsider Within is being produced by Joséphine Mourlaque and Antoine Salomé on behalf of Mabel Films, in co-production with Benoît Roland for Belgian firm Wrong Men. Executive production in Benin will fall to Faissol Gnonlonfin for Merveilles Production. Pre-purchased by TV5 Monde, the feature film also enjoys an advance on receipts from the CNC, as well as backing from Eurimages, the Normandy region, and the SOFICA company Cinémage. Filming will last six weeks (four and a half of which will be spent in Benin and the remainder in France in April) with Victor Zébo (Orlando, My Political Biography [+see also:
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interview: Paul B Preciado
film profile], The Book of Joy [+see also:
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interview: Camille Lugan
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For the record, Mabel Films recently gave us Drifting Laurent by Léo Couture, Mattéo Eustachon and Anton Balekdjian, which was unveiled back in May in Cannes’ ACID line-up, which was nominated for the Best French Film of the Year Louis-Delluc Award, and which Arizona Distribution are launching in French cinemas on 31 December.

(Translated from French)