EINFACH DAS ENDE DER WELT

After twelve years, the writer Louis (Gaspard Ulliel), 34, returns to his family. He is terminally ill and wants to tell them. But at the table sit his mother (Nathalie Baye), his younger sister Suzanne (Léa Seydoux), his brother Antoine (Vincent Cassel) and Antoine’s wife Catherine (Marion Cotillard) – and each of them has their own score to settle over Louis’s absence. Instead of a conversation, there are accusations, interruptions, half-finished sentences, and the news finds no room. “Einfach das Ende der Welt” (2016) by the Canadian Xavier Dolan is based on the 1990 play by Jean-Luc Lagarce.

Xavier Dolan of Canada stages the chamber piece as a sequence of audiences: Louis takes on one family member after another, in close-ups and shot-reverse-shot, the volume always at full pitch. In Cannes the film received a divided reception in 2016 and nonetheless won the Grand Prix of the Jury as well as the Ecumenical Jury Prize; at the Césars, awards followed for direction, editing and Gaspard Ulliel. It was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2016 in the French Preview section.

Shown at the 2016 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

All films 2016 · Film Archive