“Divines”, Cannes Film Festival phenomenon on screens

Houda Benyamina’s feature film – Groupe Ouest 2013 – in French cinemas on 31 August 2016

Divines, 2016 Cannes Film Festival revelation, will be on French screens on 31 August. Cannes prize-winning (Caméra d’Or 2016), Houda Benyamina‘s first feature energy and humanity left its mark on the festival: “Benyamina and her ’til-now totally unknown cast were mobbed on stage with cheers and claps.” (BFI)

In 2013, Houda and Romain Compingt (her scriptwrtier) developed their script in Brittany within Groupe Ouest Yearly Selection programme, coached by Marcel Beaulieu, Yann Apperry and Julien Lilti, all of them consultants at Groupe Ouest (for the anecdote: Houda and Romain worked beside Ralitza Petrova,Golden Leopard at Locarno in 2016 with Godless, who was also part of Groupe Ouest 2013 Yearly Selection).

We spotted Houda‘s work thanks to her medium-length film, Sur la route du paradis (The road of Paradise), which already testified of a humanity and a rare strength. With her, the slightest minor character is modeled with love, the slightest line has a certain something! Based on an elaborate script, Divines, her first feature film, fast-tracked her as the good news of the year for French cinema.

The film is produced by Marc-Benoît Créancier for Easy Tiger and released by Diaphana.

Divines has been presented in the Directors’ Fortnight of the 69th Cannes Film Festival.