FANNY’S JOURNEY/ Le Voyage de Fanny

 

World Premiere • Drama, war • France, Belgium, 2016

DCP • 1.85 • Dolby 5.1 • Color • 95 min

Directed by: Lola Doillon

Written by: Lola Doillon, Anne Peyregne

Cinematography: Pierre Cottereau

Film Editing: Valérie Deseine

Produced by: Saga Blanchard (Origami Films), Marie de Lussigny (Bee Films)

Cast: Léonie Souchaud (Fanny), Cécile de France (Madame Forman), Stéphane De Groodt (Jean), Fantine Harduin (Erika), Juliane Lepoureau (Georgette)

International Sales: Indie Sales • indiesales.eu

Release date in France: May 18, 2016

 

COLCOA’s audience will be the first in the world to see this poignant story of a brave and resourceful young girl leading a small band of orphans through Nazi-occupied Europe. Based on the autobiography of Fanny Ben Ami, the journey starts in 1939. After the arrest of her father in Paris, Fanny and her younger sisters, Erica and Georgette, are sent to a refectory for Jewish children in a neutral zone. For a time, she and her new friends are safe, but the war catches up to them soon enough, forcing them to flee. Fanny, now all of 13 years-old, has always relied on adults to take care of her, but as Mussolini’s Italy collapses and the chaos of war closes in, Fanny has to be the adult for a group of 8 children. Hounded on all sides, and with nothing but her wits and her newly discovered fearlessness, Fanny resolves to do whatever it takes to get her young charges safely to the Swiss border. A tale of survival seen through the eyes of children coming-of-age amidst the horrors of WWII.

 

This is the third feature from writer/director Lola Doillon and her most ambitious to date. Her debut, Et toi t'es sur qui?, is a coming-of-age romantic drama that screened in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section in 2007.  Doillon followed that up with the psychological drama In Your Hands (2010), starring Kristin Scott Thomas. Doillon wrote both of her previous films, but here she collaborated with veteran TV writer Anne Peyregne to tackle Fanny Ben Ami’s epistolary autobiography. Growing up, filmmaking was the Doillon family business. Her mother is editor Noelle Boisson, and her father is director Jacques Doillon, with whom she got her start as an assistant director. Now married to director Cedric Klapisch, Doillon is keeping the tradition going. In addition to her feature work, Doillon is branching out into TV. In 2015 she directed two episodes of the new France 2 show Call My Agent, screening in COLCOA’s Television section this year.