Cinekid offered funny fantasy, exciting adventure and beautiful animation. Yet the top prize - the Cinekid Lion - went on Thursday night to Le Nouveau, a seemingly modest French teen film that is, above all, very true to life. Lighthearted yet seriously portrayed schoolgirl misadventures that any young viewer could go through themselves. The youth jury also selected this directorial debut by Rudi Rosenberg as the best. A choice I can only agree with wholeheartedly.
The strength of this French coming-of-age film is not so much in plot or exciting drama, but in the infectious familiarity and the excellent young actors. The outsider and the group, exclusion and bullying, misunderstandings around friendship and falling in love. Countless films have already been made about such matters, but with Rosenberg it is fresh all the same.
A 14-year-old boy arrives at a new school in Paris after moving house. There, as a shy newcomer, he has to find his place among bullies and giggly girls who all leave him alone at lunch time. Except maybe that Swedish girl who is also new?
Seemingly careless realism
Not out of luck, the newcomer organises a party in his own clumsy way, which threatens utterly to fail when only three other misfits show up. After which, everything takes a very different course than he and we expected. In fact, Rosenberg does little other than sequence hit scenes in a more or less careless manner, creating a kind of realism that portrays the group dynamics in such a teenage community razor-sharp.
Often just a touch different and less predictable than we are used to. Sometimes hilarious, sometimes painful and touching, but mostly down-to-earth and nuanced. Even the sympathetic protagonist is sometimes tempted to attack his buddies out of self-interest. Characteristic of the laconic approach is also the unproblematic place a disabled student occupies in this optimistic group portrait with a hefty dose of nerd-power.
Adults do not play a major role in all this. Life experience is something you should gain among yourselves as teenagers, seems to be Rosenberg's message. But since you obviously can't experience everything yourself, a film like Le Nouveau contributing to that. Now just hope that teenagers know how to find the film when it comes to our theatres during next year.
The audience award at the international competition went to Il ragazzo invisible by Gabriele Salvatores, an Italian adventure with supernatural touches. The Forest Campis by Arne Toonen was awarded as the best Dutch family film by both jury and audience.
See further the Cinekid website for television and new media awards.
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