A former student at La Fémis, Jean-Baptiste Saurel has made a name for himself with short films such as Retrosexo (presented at Clermont-Ferrand in 2017) and The Dickslap (in competition at Cannes' Critics Week in 2012), and helmed six episodes of the recent Parallels series (Disney+). He is currently in the middle of post-production for his first feature film, Zénithal.

The cast includes Franc Bruneau (seen in Bloody Milk [+lee también:
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entrevista: Hubert Charuel
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entrevista: Olivier Wotling
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entrevista: Eric Gravel
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entrevista: Jean-Paul Salomé
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Written by the director and Élodie Wallace, the script centers around Francis (Franc Bruneau) and Sonia (Vanessa Guide). Together for 10 years, they no longer understand each other. She dreams of a new sexuality, while he is stuck in an outdated masculinity. When Francis falls into the clutches of a Machiavellian doctor (Xavier Lacaille) bent on preserving male domination, Sonia decides to take action to save Francis, her relationship and establish peace between the sexes...

Zénithal was produced by Amaury Ovise for Kazak Productions, and was pre-bought by Canal+ and Ciné+. The cinematography is by Yann Maritaud (nominated for the Lumière 2021 Image Award for  Slalom [+lee también:
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entrevista: Charlène Favier
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Kazak Productions is also currently in post-production on Anti-Squat [+lee también:
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ficha de la película] by Nicolas Silhol (French release on 6 September) and The Good Teacher by Teddy Lussi-Modeste (with François Civil as its lead, co-written by the director with Audrey Diwan).