Latest news with #Herzi
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘The Little Sister' Scores 12-Minute Ovation At Cannes Premiere
The Little Sister drew big applause at the Cannes Film Festival. The audience gave writer-director Hafsia Herzi's coming-out pic an energetic 12-minute ovation after its world premiere Friday at the Palais. There were lots of whoops and shouts from the crowd before Herzi's post-screening thank-you speech as people showed their enthusiasm for the French director's third feature aka La Petite Dernière. More from Deadline 'The Little Sister' Review: Nadia Melliti Makes A Striking Debut In Hafsia Herzi's Seductive Coming-Out Story – Cannes Film Festival Cannes Film Festival 2025: Read All Of Deadline's Movie Reviews Studio TF1 CEO Pierre Branco Talks Cinema Push, Hire Of Ex-Sky Original Film Director & Appointment Of French Distribution Head The film starring Nadia Melliti is adapted from Fatima Daas's semi-autobiographical 2022 novel The Last One, the story of a young gay Muslim woman's sexual awakening. In his Deadline review, Damon Wise wrote, 'Herzi confidently takes what could have been a traditional coming-out tale and turns it into something altogether more defiant, a character study that takes place in the no-man's-land between the oppressive certainties of childhood and the intoxicating freedoms of early adulthood.' RELATED: Here's the logline: Fatima, 17, is the youngest. She lives in the suburbs with her sisters, in a happy and loving family. A good student, she joins a philosophy school in Paris and discovers a whole new world. As she begins her life as a young woman, she emancipates herself from her family and its traditions. Fatima then begins to question her identity. How can she reconcile her faith with her budding desires? Park Ji-min, Amina Ben Mohamed, Rita Benmannana, Melissa Guers also star in The Little Sister, which MK2 Films is shopping on the Riviera. Best of Deadline Everything We Know About Paramount's 'Regretting You' Adaptation So Far 2025 TV Cancellations: Photo Gallery Where To Watch All The 'Mission: Impossible' Movies: Streamers With Multiple Films In The Franchise
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Hafsia Herzi Brings Live-Wire Spirit to Cannes Competition Title ‘The Little Sister': ‘I'd Always Dreamed of Doing Something Fast, a Bit Thrown Together.'
Hafsia Herzi's breakout turn in 2007's 'The Secret of the Grain' catapulted her from obscurity to stardom, establishing her as a mainstay of French cinema. Just over a decade later, she redefined her artistic path with her self-produced directorial debut, 'You Deserve a Lover,' which premiered out of Critics' Week in 2019. Lately, both sides of her career have reached new heights: she recently won the César for best actress for the crime thriller 'Borgo,' and now enters the Palme d'Or competition with 'The Little Sister.' This latest directorial outing reunites much of the crew from her scrappy debut — a loyal team that also worked with her on 'Good Mother,' which screened in Un Certain Regard in 2021. More from Variety 'The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo' Review: A Chilean Drama About HIV and Transgender Romance 'Sirat' Review: Oliver Laxe's Excruciatingly Tense, Escalatingly Insane Road Trip Through a Desert Purgatory Consortium Media Finance Launches at Cannes and Unveils First Slate of Feature Productions (EXCLUSIVE) 'I just got tired of waiting,' Herzi says of her leap into directing. 'I'd always dreamed of doing something fast, a bit thrown together. One day I just said, let's go. Worst case, I'd have a film. I had nothing to lose—it's just cinema.' The director brought that same livewire spirit to 'The Little Sister,' a coming-of-age drama about a young Franco-Algerian woman grappling with the tension between her Queer identity and her deep religious faith. 'I'm always chasing something real,' Herzi says. 'On set, I see myself as the film's first viewer—watching it unfold in real time. I try to stay attuned to what's happening, close enough to feel it, but far enough not to get in the way. If a moment moves me—if I laugh or cry—I know it's working. If not, I have no problem scrapping the scene and trying something else.' Herzi initially stepped in front of the camera out of sheer necessity, knowing her name could help carry her debut. But since then, she's preferred to hang back — and she plans to keep it that way. 'I take the most joy in filming others,' she says of her intimate, close-up-driven style. 'I love being near people, their faces, their skin. I'm inspired by portrait painting. That's why there's almost no makeup—everything is kept simple, so I can stay close, feel their breath, their pulse. I want to live the emotion with them. If I'm too far, or the frame isn't right, I lose that. Faces are beautiful. Why wouldn't we take the time to really look?' Going forward, Herzi remains committed to that approach. 'I want to shine a light on people we rarely see on screen,' she says. 'I've rarely seen a proudly Queer North African character on screen, even though I know so many women like her. I had to tell her story.' Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival
