30/09/2021 - The young, Brussels-based director who turned heads with his shorts Mouettes and Jay Amongst Men is gearing up to begin filming on his first feature-length movie

4 October will see filming commence on Zeno Graton’s first feature film Le Paradis [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Zeno Graton
film profile], just a few kilometres outside of Bruges.

The young director has already made a name for himself on the short film circuit by way of his graduation film Mouettes, which won an award at the Namur Film Festival and the Brussels Short Film Festival, before being broadcast all over the world, but also via Jay Amongst Men, which was nominated for the Best Short Film Magritte and selected for the prestigious Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival.

In Le Paradis, Graton takes us inside a juvenile correction facility, a closed-off and merciless place characterised by suffocating standards of discipline which is home to young boys at odds with society and cut adrift. Within this establishment where physical contact is prohibited, Joe and William fall in love. It’s a love both impossible and forbidden which will bring trouble and disorder. In order to love one another, they will have to break the law.

In the roles of Joe and William we find young actors Khalil Gharbia (seen in the Skam France series) and Julien De Saint-Jean. Acting opposite them as youth workers are Jonathan Couzinié (the hero in Aude-Léa Rapin’s work Heroes Don’t Die [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Aude Léa Rapin
film profile], also starring Adèle Haenel), and highly sought after actor Eye Haïdara (who stole the show in C’est La Vie! [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano).

Le Paradis is produced by Valérie Bournonville and Joseph Rouschop on behalf of the Liege-based firm Tarantula, who are currently producing another Belgian film entitled Let's Get Lost [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: François Pirot
film profile] by François Pirot, in co-production with Silex Films (Priscilla Bertin and Judith Nora) in France and Menuetto Film in Belgium.

The film will be sold worldwide by Indie Sales, with distribution in France steered by Rezo.

(Translated from French)