A NICE JEWISH BOY

(Le Dernier des Juifs)

CINEMA COMPETITION
FRENCH NEWAVE 2.0
TRUFFAUT THEATRE
Comedy / Drama

THURSDAY OCTOBER 31
4:05 pm (Screening ends at 5:40 pm)

Presented in association with:
Charades
Film Movement

Directed by: Noé Debré
Written by: Noé Debré, Élie Benchimol
Produced by: Benjamin Elalouf (Moonshaker), Nathalie Dennes (The Living), Noé Debré (L’Embellie)
Cinematography: Boris Levy
Film Editing: Géraldine Mangenot
Original Score: Valentin Hadjadj
Cast: Michael Zindel (Bellisha), Agnès Jaoui (Giselle), Solal Bouloudnine (Asher), Eva Huault (Mira), Pierre-Henry Salfati (the father), Youssouf Gueye (Moussa), Jean-Yves Freyburger (the priest), Rony Kramer (Bouanich), Marc Geissman (M. Bloch), Redouanne Harjane (the Krav-maga teacher)
International Sales: Charades
US Distributor: Film Mouvement
US Release Date: 2025

The “nice Jewish boy” in question is 27-year-old Ruben Bellisha, who lives with his mother, Giselle, in the projects outside of Paris. Once a bustling Jewish community, the neighborhood has now become much more diverse — a fact Giselle is not thrilled about. The local synagogue has already closed and now the last Kosher grocer is going out of business. While they may be the last Jews living there, bumbling, nerdy Bellisha, a compulsive liar (albeit a very entertaining one), continually makes up stories to hide the truth and placate his traditional mother. And while she keeps saying they have to move away, she never quite finishes packing their moving cartons. Seasoned screenwriter Noé Debré makes his directorial debut with this gentle, slightly wacky comedy that stages various shades of racism and anti-Semitism, as well as compassion and mutual respect, with the lightest of touches. But the heart of his film resides in a son’s devotion to his beloved mother. It goes without saying that the sublime Agnès Jaoui is nothing short of magnificent in that role.

Noé Debré has written or co-written numerous feature-length screenplays, including Thomas Bidegain’s Les Cowboys (2015); Jacques Audiard’s Dheepan (2015), which won the Palme d’Or in Cannes; Pascal Elbé’s Thank You for Calling (2015); Yvan Attal’s Le Brio (Critics Award winner COLCOA 2017); Romain Gavras’s The World Is Yours (2018); Michel Hazanavicius’s The Lost Prince (2020); Emmanuel Poulain-Arnaud’s Les Cobayes (2020); Tom McCarthy’s Stillwater (2021); Bryan Marciano’s L’arche de Noé (2023); and Héléna Klotz’s Spirit of Ecstasy (2023). He created the series Parlement (2020), directing two of its episodes, and teamed up with Benjamin Charbit to co-create the series Zorro (TAFFF 2024).