THE KINGDOM

(Le Royaume)

CINEMA COMPETITION
FRENCH NEWAVE 2.0
TRUFFAUT THEATRE
Drama / Thriller

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 30
7:50 pm (Screening ends at 9:45 pm)

Presented in association with:
Goodfellas
Metrograph

Special Screening | France | 2024 | Drama, Thriller | 108 min | In French with English subtitles

Directed by: Julien Colonna
Written by: Julien Colonna, Jeanne Herry
Produced by: Hugo Sélignac, Antoine Lafon (Chi-Fou-Mi Productions)
Cinematography: Antoine Cormier
Film Editing: Albertine Lastera, Yann Malcor
Original Score: Audrey Ismaël
Cast: Ghjuvanna Benedetti, Anthony Morganti, Thomas Bronzini de Caraffa, Pascale Marriani, Saveriu Santucci, Andrea Cossu, Frédéric Poggi, Eric Ettori
International Sales: Goodfellas
US Distributor: Metrograph
US release: 2025

Julien Colonna‘s astonishing first feature turns the mafia genre on its head, very simply by telling it from the point of view of a 15-year-old girl. When summer begins, Lesia is going to the beach and wrapped up in clandestine meetings with her boyfriend… until she’s suddenly whisked away by a man on a motorbike and taken to the isolated seaside villa where her Corsican crime-boss father is on the lam. It’s a ritual she’s more than familiar with; it’s the story of her life. But this is the summer Lesia’s father opens both his heart and his world to her, and she will never be the same. Co-written with COLCOA/TAFFF veteran writer-director Jeanne Herry (In Safe Hands and All Your Faces), The Kingdom not only lures us into that sinister world, but is simultaneously moving, chilling and complex in its illustration of how the torch is passed in an endless wheel of violence.

Born in Corsica, Julien Colonna began his career directing commercials for such clients as Mastercard, Hennessey and Verbreuil. He wrote and directed his first short, The Confession, in 2015, which was followed by the documentary Luo Yang’s Girls (2019). He’s directed two TV series, Brutal: Taste of Violence (2016) and Gloria (2021). The Kingdom, his first feature, premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and is presented at TAFFF prior to its French theatrical release.