Young, Belgian-based French filmmaker Manon Coubia is in the middle of making her first feature-length fiction film, Forêt Ivre (lit. “Drunk Forest”), the cast of which includes three actresses who take it in turns to topline the tale: Anne Coesens, Salomé Richard and Aurélia Petit. Having turned heads with her first short film, Sonate Blanche, which toured numerous festivals, Coubia is heavily involved in both the creative and production side of things within the VOA films collective, which produces the documentaries of Nicolás Rincón Gille, among other works. In 2016, her film The Fullness of Time (Romance) received the Golden Leopard for Best Short Film at the high-profile Locarno Film Festival. The following year, Les enfants partent à l’aube was selected for the Cannes Critics’ Week, and she returned to Locarno in 2023 with her most recent short, Full Night.

Forêt Ivre is an unusual project, which is set in a mountain refuge and is being filmed over the course of four seasons. The shoot, which kicked off a few months ago, will wrap in April next year, with a few final scenes to be shot to round things off. The mountains, and particularly those in Haute-Savoie, are at the heart of the filmmaker’s cinematic creations, taking pride of place in many of her films. This time around, she follows the overlapping paths of three women who take shifts taking care of a mountain refuge. As the seasons go by amidst the immensity of nature, they have more and more encounters, and bonds are made and broken. Through these three intimate portraits, captured over the course of one season each, the movie observes these women who have chosen to escape from the world down there, at ground level.

First up to breathe life into one of these women is Belgian actress Anne Coesens, who is currently gracing TV screens in season 2 of the Belgian series Pandora, whom we saw recently in Headwind by Pierre Godeau, and whom we will get a glimpse of soon in Filles du ciel by Bérangère McNeese (see the news). Another season, another actress: Coubia is working with Salomé Richard once again, after previously teaming up with her on her short Full Nights. The thesp, who is also a director, appears alongside Anne Coesens in Pandora. The third actress is France’s Aurélie Petit, who appeared not long ago in Winter Crossing by Stéphane Marchetti and will be glimpsed shortly in C’est quoi l’amour by Fabien Gorgeart (see the news).

Forêt Ivre is being produced by The Blue Raincoat, a company set up in 2021 by Nicolás Rincón Gille, Jeremy van der Haegen and Manon Coubia, which we have to thank for the short Zanatany, When Soulless Shrouds Whisper by Hachimiya Ahamada, which was selected for IFFR, as well as the upcoming film by Nicolás Rincón Gille, Iluminada, a movie currently in post-production. Forêt Ivre is being co-produced on the French side by Charlotte Vincent et Katia Khazak for Aurora Films. The film has received lightweight production support from the Wallonia-Brussels Federation as well as production backing from the Brussels Audiovisual Centre. It has also received support from France’s CNC.