Latest news with #WildFoxes
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Wild Foxes' Review: Budding French Star Samuel Kircher Jabs His Way Through a Tough and Tender Debut Boxing Drama
Boxing movies are a dime a dozen and have been since the birth of cinema, or at least since the talkies. It's a genre that offers instant gratification — because what's more visceral and entertaining than watching two people beat the hell out of each other on screen? Bringing something original to the genre is significantly harder, which is why Belgian writer-director Valéry Carnoy deserves kudos for making his feature début, Wild Foxes (La Danse des renards), stand apart from your typical testosterone-fueled slugfest. More from The Hollywood Reporter 'Die My Love' Review: Jennifer Lawrence Spirals Into Psychosis While Robert Pattinson Plunges Into Despair in Lynne Ramsay's Jarring Character Study At 'Die, My Love' Cannes Premiere, Person Dressed as Bird Flies in Face of Festival Red Carpet Rules Cannes: Lynne Ramsay/Jennifer Lawrence Collab 'Die, My Love,' Sales Title in Competition, Draws Six-Minute Standing Ovation He stages the action within a highly special location: an elite French sports-études boarding school where teenage athletes are selected to train throughout their high school years. The public institution seems to weigh as heavily on the young fighters as all the punches they take in the ring, driving them toward acts of desperation or self-sabotage as they try to becomes pros. Wild Foxes adds an intriguing twist to the coming-of-age sports flick template, which it otherwise adheres to quite obediently. Its 17-year-old hero, Camille — played with tender intensity by Samuel Kircher — is the best fighter in his age group, the one with the most prospects of representing France in the Olympics one day. But a minor injury winds up setting him back in unexpected ways, making Camille question the brutality of his trade, and whether there are more things to life than becoming the next Marcel Cerdan (for those familiar with French boxing greats). His surprising trajectory from feared pugilist to maligned outcast guides a film that questions the violence Camille commits in the ring, as well that committed against him by his fellow classmates, including best friend and sparring partner, Matteo (Fayçal Anaflous). When we first meet them, the two are like buffed-up peas in a pod, training all day together, making barechested TikTok videos along with teammates LBF (Jef Jacobs), Nasserdine (Hassan Alili) and Coreb (Salahdine El Garchi), working hard but playing hard, too. When they're not doing 10K runs or hitting the bag at the behest of their trainer, Bogdan (Jean-Baptiste Durand), Camille and Matteo sneak out to the forest nearby the school, feeding stolen meat to stray foxes that lurk in the brush. During one of their excursions, Camille falls off a cliff and nearly kills himself, walking away quite miraculously with only a nasty cut on his right arm. Soon enough he's ready to put the gloves back on, but for some reason he can't escape the trauma caused by his accident. He starts feeling phantom pain, refusing to fight or train, while panic attacks keep him up all night. At the same time, he meets a girl, Yas (Anne Heckel), who trains in taekwondo but has other interests, including playing classical music on a trumpet. The dangerous fall and its aftermath push Camille — who we learn has been boxing since he was 8, spurred on by an abusive father — to open himself up to new experiences beyond the ring. That would normally be a good thing, except that within the competitive pressure cooker of a sports-études program, students are expected to perform at extremely high levels. The other boxers, especially rival LBF, begin to resent Camille for not carrying his weight with the team, driving a wedge between the young champ and best bud Matteo. Carnoy keeps things fairly riveting from start to finish, peppering the drama with fits of violence and moments of respite, during which we retreat to the massive forest adjacent to the school. Some of the plot points can feel a bit belabored, including a fox hunt that forces its way into the third act without warning. But the director maintains a strong level of realistic tension, sticking to Camille's side as the boy takes plenty of blows but dishes out plenty as well, jabbing his way towards a form of self-realization. Returning to Cannes with two movies (this one and The Girl in the Snow) after making his debut in Catherine Breillat's Last Summer back in 2023, Kircher — son of actress Irène Jacob and brother of actor Paul Kircher (The Animal Kingdom) — carries the movie in compelling ways. He can appear vulnerable and waiflike in certain scenes, barely able to stand or defend himself, while in others he can seem brutish and explosive. It's this dichotomy that Wild Foxes constantly explores, searching for parallels between the young boxers fighting for their futures and the animals fighting to survive in the woods nearby. Both live in a ruthless world where, like Camille, you can suddenly go from hunter to being hunted. The question the film ultimately asks is whether a third way is at all possible, leading to a gripping final combat that's much less a knockout than a bitter victory. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Cannes: Hasan Hadi's ‘The President's Cake' Wins Directors' Fortnight Audience Award
Iraqi filmmaker Hasan Hadi has won the Directors' Fortnight People's Choice Award at the Cannes Film Festival for his poignant, darkly comic debut feature The President's Cake. The €7,500 ($8,400) cash prize is the only audience-voted award across the official selection and parallel sections in Cannes and marks a major breakthrough for the New York-based Hadi. The film is being sold internationally by Films Boutique, with UTA handling North American rights. More from The Hollywood Reporter 'Heads or Tails?' Review: John C. Reilly Plays Buffalo Bill in a Wacky Italy-Set Western With Ambition to Burn 'Yes' Review: Director Nadav Lapid's Decadent Romp Through the Madness and Misery of Post-October 7th Israel Cannes: Mubi Buys Wagner Moura-Starring 'The Secret Agent' for U.K., India, Most of Latin America Based on Hadi's own childhood in 1990s Iraq, the film follows nine-year-old Lamia, who is tasked with baking a cake to honor Saddam Hussein's birthday — a seemingly simple assignment with life-or-death stakes. Amid crippling sanctions, food shortages and a climate of fear, Lamia's attempt to gather ingredients becomes a journey of quiet rebellion and resourcefulness. Produced by Leah Chen Baker under the banner of TPC Film LLC, the film has resonated with critics and audiences alike. In her The Hollywood Reporter review, Sheri Linden praised it as 'a tragicomic gem,' writing: 'Hadi's film is an exceptional screen debut, as perceptive as it is kinetic and, with one eye on the bombers overhead, brimming with life.' The Directors' Fortnight People's Choice Award was launched in 2023 in partnership with the Chantal Akerman Foundation, honoring the late Belgian auteur whose work frequently premiered in the section — including her feminist masterwork Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. The award was created to spotlight bold, audience-connected filmmaking in the spirit of Akerman's legacy. The debut 2024 honor went to Canadian feature Universal Language from director Matthew Rankin. Elsewhere in the Directors' Fortnight, Belgian filmmaker Valéry Carnoy's Wild Foxes (La Danse des Renards) dominated the sidebar's collateral awards, taking home both the Europa Cinemas Label for Best European Film and the SACD Coup de Cœur Prize for best French-language feature. The film follows a gifted young boxer at a prestigious sports boarding school who is forced to reevaluate his life after a devastating injury. THR reviewer Jordan Mintzer called the film 'a gripping and distinctive sports flick.' Co-produced by Hélicotronc (Belgium) and Les Films du Poisson (France), Wild Foxes is being sold internationally by The Party Film Sales. The Europa Cinemas win means the film will receive extended distribution support across Europe, with additional promotion and incentives for exhibitors. Best of The Hollywood Reporter Hollywood Stars Who Are One Award Away From an EGOT 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
A Belgian Boxer Goes to the Mat in Directors' Fortnight Entry ‘Wild Foxes' (Exclusive Trailer)
A teenage boxer is pushed to the limits in Wild Foxes. The Hollywood Reporter can exclusively reveal the first trailer from the feature film debut of Belgian director Valéry Carnoy. The film will have its world premiere in the Directors' Fortnight section of the Cannes film festival, which kicks off next week. Samuel Kircher, the breakout star of Catherine Breillat's Last Summer, stars as Camille, a talented young boxer at a sports boarding school who narrowly survives a fatal accident, saved by his best friend Matteo (Faycal Anaflous). But after a swift recovery, Camille is struck by an inexplicable pain that gradually takes hold of him, threatening his dreams of greatness. In the world he knows, in the ring and outside it, there's no room for weakness. More from The Hollywood Reporter Tom Cruise Shuts Down Tariffs Talk at 'Mission: Impossible' Press Event: "We'd Rather Answer Questions About the Movie" Nicolas Cage's 'The Carpenter's Son' Lands at Magnolia 'September 5' Sweeps German Film Awards Carnoy's 2021 short film Titan was a hit on the international festival circuit, screening in more than a hundred international festivals and winning more than 30 awards. The Party Film Sales is handling world sales for Wild Foxes. Check out the trailer below. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked
