The 79th edition of the Locarno Film Festival opens with a refugee adventure drama on Wednesday that hopes to open people’s hearts and eyes – may they be green or not.
After all, the title of the new feature from writers-directors Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh is Les Yeux Verts (The Green Eyes), and it will world premiere on the Piazza Grande, the big square in the Swiss city, following the presentation of this year’s Excellence Award to Italian star Isabella Rossellini.
The movie tells the story of Chaya, 11, who lives with her family in the Landes region of France, right by the ocean. When the family faces deportation, Chaya’s older brother Nour “falls into a deep and mysterious sleep,” teases a synopsis. “Chaya will do everything she can to wake him up, even going so far as to dive into his dreams to find him.”
Indeed, the film is more than an exploration of “resignation syndrome,” a rare condition that sees psychologically traumatized refugee children fall into a coma-like state of deep withdrawal and unresponsiveness.
The Green Eyes, a co-production between France, Belgium, and Sweden, stars Douae Butarbuch M’Zaouki, Sayyid El Alami (Messiah, A Gentleman in Moscow), Anamaria Vartolomei (Happening, Mickey 17), Arcadi Radeff (Passages) and Omar Al Jbaai. The directors (Gagarine) wrote the screenplay together with Guillaume Laurant (Amélie). The cinematographer was Victor Seguin, while Tina Baz and Daniel Darmon handled editing. The Swiss distributor is Filmcoopi Zürich, while Kinology is in charge of international sales.
“Les Yeux Verts is an adventure, a story of resilience told from a child’s perspective and set against the backdrop of a turbulent world in which they are trying to find their place,” Liatard and Trouilh highlight in a joint directors’ note.
Ahead of the film’s Locarno world premiere, THR asked Liatard and Trouilh, in an email exchange, about their inspiration and hopes for The Green Eyes.
What inspired you to make a film about “resignation syndrome,” and why did you decide to combine drama and adventure elements?
FANNY LIATARD and JÉRÉMY TROUILH We discovered the existence of resignation syndrome a few years ago, and we were struck by the violence of these children’s reaction to political decisions over which they have no control. Then, as our research progressed, we came across an interview with a child who had woken up not long before. The journalist asked him if he remembered anything from his long sleep, or if he’d had any dreams. The boy replied that in his dreams, he saw himself in a glass cage at the bottom of the ocean. The slightest movement on his part risked shattering the cage and causing him to drown.
We were very struck by this answer. We then conceived the film as an adventure seen through a child’s eyes. The territory in which we shot, in the South-West of France, greatly inspired us. Just like the territory of Gagarine, it is a character of the film. This village at the end of the world, surrounded by the ocean, rivers and pine forests, adds a touch of magic to our story – the same forests that are today on fire.
Given the state of the world, a film from a child’s perspective dealing with a world in chaos feels so, so timely. What is your hope for what viewers will take away after seeing the film?
LIATARD and TROUILH When it comes to migration, one sometimes gets the impression that society has lost its sense of empathy. Solidarity and the strength of the collective are values we deeply cherish. Telling this story from a child’s perspective is a way of trying to revive empathy for people who are often dehumanized by the way they are portrayed.
A child confronted with a world that seems to reject them, and who finds a form of resilience by taking refuge in their imagination: this moves us in a way that is both deeply personal and universally relatable. In this sense, films such as Jeff Nichols’ Mud or [Hirokazu] Kore-eda’s Nobody Knows have inspired us greatly through the power of a child’s perspective on a world dominated by adults.
Congratulations on the amazing cast! We have seen Sayyid and Anamaria before, but I didn’t know Douae, who has such charisma. How and where did you find her?
LIATARD and TROUILH We feel so proud of her! Douae was 10 when we met her, and it was her very first experience acting in a movie. It took us more than one year to find Chaya. From Paris to Marseille and Brussels, our casting crew worked a lot to find the right person. Douae had this profound light that we needed for the character.
We met her in Belgium, where she lives with her family. French is her fourth language; she speaks Arabic, Spanish, and Flemish, and she’s really incredible. Sayyid and Anamaria were particularly involved by her side to help her enter this story, and the link she created with them really helped the story to exist.
Can you tell me how you chose the title The Green Eyes and what it symbolizes?
LIATARD and TROUILH We’d had this title in mind from early on in the screenwriting process. Maybe we like it because it sparks the imagination. For us, it conveys both the original trauma of these siblings and the love that binds them. Ultimately, it serves as an indelible mark of the hardships they overcome together.
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