Forever Young

Late eighties, Nanterre. A group of young people sit the entrance exam for the acting school at the Théâtre des Amandiers, run by Patrice Chéreau and Pierre Romans. The method is hard: constant work, personal limits pushed, and a distance between teacher and student that never quite settles. Valeria Bruni Tedeschi directs. It is her fifth film and it comes straight out of her own past, because she was a student there. Nadia Tereszkiewicz plays Stella and Sofiane Bennacer plays Etienne, with Louis Garrel as Chéreau and Micha Lescot as Romans. It competed at Cannes in 2022 and opened in France on 16 November that year. What happened just before release changed the film's course. In October 2022 Bennacer, who was in a relationship with the director, was placed under judicial supervision on charges of rape and domestic violence. Some cinemas dropped the film, and the César Academy removed him from its 2023 list of promising newcomers. Tereszkiewicz went on to win the César for most promising actress. Who it is for: viewers interested in acting training, in 1980s France, and in stories about a group of young people forming. Who it is not for: the film keeps sliding between criticising the teachers' conduct and commemorating it, and some viewers will not carry that ambiguity.