After making a splash on the Piazza Grande at Locarno in 2023 with First Case, Victoria Musiedlak will begin shooting her second feature, L’incident, on 17 March.

Toplining the cast are Tahar Rahim (winner of the 2010 César Award for Best Actor for A Prophet as well as being a 2025 nominee, a Golden Globe nominee in 2021 for The Mauritanian and in 2022 for the series The Serpent, recently seen in Alpha, and set to hit French cinemas next October in Les Misérables), Italy's Alba Rohrwacher (Best Actress at Venice in 2014 for Hungry Hearts, winner of the 2009 David di Donatello Award for Best Actress for Giovanna's Father and a further four-time nominee in the category, seen last year in Jay Kelly and Three Goodbyes, and due to be glimpsed this year in Une autre histoire, Un bon petit soldat and Una storia), and Jean-Pierre Darroussin (nominated for the César Award for Best Actor in 1999 and 2008, recently in Stealing Angel and Vultures, and set to grace screens in 2026 in Une femme aujourd’hui). Also on board are Catherine Mouchet (nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the 2000 Césars, turning heads last year in The Ties that Bind Us) and Micha Lescot (nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the 2023 Césars for Forever Young, currently out in French cinemas in Maigret and the Dead Lover and imminently in Un peu avant minuit).

The screenplay, written by the director, centres on Harry and Apollonia, a close-knit couple who are parents to two little girls, and who return to France after 15 years abroad. While staying with Harry’s parents on holiday, Apollonia confides in her husband about an inappropriate gesture from her father-in-law. Was it a tasteless joke or the sign of a deeper deviance? Like a spreading poison, questions arise about Michel’s behaviour, rippling through the couple and dividing them, until everything is laid to waste…

L’incident is being produced by Sarah Egry for Agat Films and by Camille Deleau for Ligne 2; it has been pre-bought by Canal+ and Ciné+ OCS. Also backed by the Île-de-France, Nouvelle Aquitaine and Sud regions, as well as by the Entourage, Cinécap, Indéfilms, Cinéaxe, La Banque Postale Image, Impact and Imagellium Soficas, the feature will boast an eight-week shoot running until early May (in Île-de-France, then Nouvelle Aquitaine, and finally a few days in Norway) with Amine Berrada (Banel & Adama, Sukkwan Island) as director of photography. International sales are handled by Be For Films, and the French theatrical distribution will be overseen by Diaphana.

For the record, Agat Films & Ex Nihilo also has Pipaluk, The Girl Who Raced the Wind by Thierry Machado in production (see the news), and A Woman Today by Robert Guédiguian, Du fioul dans les artères by Pierre Le Gall, Greenland by Emmanuel Courcol (see the news) and the documentary Je m’appelle Sophie Calle et je suis encore vivante by Sébastien Lifshitz in post-production.