05/06/2019 - Félix Lefebvre, Benjamin Voisin and Philippine Velge are among the cast of the filmmaker’s 19th feature, which is being staged by Mandarin Production

Just a few months after he won the Grand Jury Prize at Berlin for By the Grace of God [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: François Ozon
film profile], which racked up 914,000 admissions in French movie theatres, François Ozon is once again hard at work, shooting his 19^th feature, Summer of 1985 [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], in Normandy.

The cast includes three young actors: Félix Lefebvre (who turned heads in the mini-series Infidèle and was glimpsed in School’s Out [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sébastien Marnier
film profile]), Benjamin Voisin (soon to grace screens in La Dernière vie de Simon and Un vrai bonhomme) and Belgium’s Philippine Velge. 

The story, written by the director, unfolds with a simple question as its starting point: what do you dream of when you’re 16 years old and in a seaside resort in Normandy in the 1980s? A best friend? A lifelong teen pact? Scooting off on adventures on a boat or a motorbike? Living life at breakneck speed? No! You dream of death. Because you can’t get a bigger kick than dying. And that’s why you save it till the very end. The summer holidays are just beginning, and this story recounts how Alexis grew into himself…

As a reminder, Ozon has been selected in competition at Cannes three times (in 2003, in 2013 with Young and Beautiful [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: François Ozon
film profile] and in 2017 with The Double Lover [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]), at Berlin five times (in 2000, 2002, 2007, 2009 and this year with the aforementioned By the Grace of God), at Venice three times (in 2004, 2010 and 2016 with Frantz [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: François Ozon
film profile]) and at San Sebastián a further three times (in 2009, winning a Special Award into the bargain, in 2012 with In the House [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], which scooped the Golden Shell, and in 2014 with The New Girlfriend [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: François Ozon
film profile]). 

Produced by Eric and Nicolas Altmayer for Mandarin Production (thus marking the eighth film in a row that the two brothers have made with François Ozon), Summer of 1985 will be filmed in Normandy and the Paris region, with Hichame Alaouie (My Traitor My Love, God’s Horses [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nabil Ayouch
film profile]) in charge of the cinematography. The cast and crew have been toiling away in Le Tréport since 27 May and will continue filming there until 14 June, with some beach scenes subsequently scheduled to be shot from 17-21 June, not far from Dieppe. The most notable partner on the feature (the full details of whom will be disclosed soon, but apparently most of the director’s regular collaborators will be involved) is Belgium’s Scope Pictures, which is on board as a co-producer.

(Translated from French)