Fotogenico

Fotogenico by Marcia Romano and Benoît Sabatier is both a moving drama about grief and a surreal comedy. We follow the clumsy Raoul, who is plagued by guilt after the death of his daughter Agnès. Because he was largely absent from her life, he travels to Marseille to get to know her, but ends up in a different world than he expected.

Agnès is said to have attended the language centre and the taekwondo school, but his search leads him into the underground drug world. Accompanied by a rousing post-punk electro soundtrack, the film perfectly balances Raoul's farcical journey with the moving need to embrace his daughter's true life. The result is a sincere look at (queer) youth culture; comically surrealistic, while the film does not shy away from sincere mourning drama, and at the same time is an unabashed declaration of love to marginal Marseille.

Fotogenico premiered in the ACID selection at the Cannes Film Festival and was screened last year at the Leiden International Film Festival in the Bonkers! Competition. Director duo Marcia Romano and Benoît Sabatier previously made films in a similar genre: Le moral des troupes (2015) and Amore Synthétique (2016).