THE GREEN EYES

(Les Yeux verts)

?US Premiere? | France, Belgium, Sweden | 2026 | Drama, Coming-of-age | 83 min | In French & Arabic with English subtitles 

 Directed by: Fanny Liatard, Jérémy Trouilh
Written by: Fanny Liatard, Jérémy Trouilh, Guillaume Laurant
Produced by: Julie Billy & Naomi Denamur (June Films), Carole Scotta (Haut et Court), Delphine Tomson, Luc Dardenne & Jean-Pierre Dardenne (Les Films du Fleuve), Nima Yousefi (Hobab), France 3 Cinéma
Cinematography: Victor Seguin
Original Score: Amine Bouhafa
Film Editing: Tina Baz, Daniel Darmon
Cast: Anamaria Vartolomei, Sayyid El Alami, Douae Butarbuch M’zaouki, Arcadi Radeff, Omar Al Jbaai
International Sales: Kinology 

Synopsis

Iraqi refugees in France, 11-year-old Chaya and her small family are refused political asylum and are soon to be deported. So her father takes off on a job in Spain to scrape together funds for their future, leaving his two children all alone. That’s when Nour, Chaya’s older brother, slips into a mysterious coma. The boy is diagnosed with resignation syndrome, a psychiatric condition that predominately affects traumatized immigrant children. However, more poetry than medical analysis, The Green Eyes then plunges Chaya into her brother’s dream world, revisiting ghosts of their past, in a desperate attempt to lure him back to reality.

Directors’ bios

Directors Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh first met as political science majors in college before diverging onto separate paths. Trouilh trained in documentary filmmaking; Liatard worked on urban artistic projects in Lebanon and France. They eventually rejoined forces to write and direct three short films: Gagarine (2015), a Sundance Channel Shorts Competition Jury Prize winner; La République des Enchanteurs (2016); and Blue Dog (2018), which was nominated for a César Award as Best Short Film. In addition to being an Official Selection at Cannes, their first feature, Gagarine (COLCOA, 2021), walked away with the Best Director Award at the 2020 Athens Film Festival. The Green Eyes, their second feature, premiered as the opening film at this year’s Locarno Film Festival.