HEARTS ON FIRE

(l’épreuve du feu)

International Premiere | France | 2025 | Drama, Comedy, Coming of Age | 105 min | In French with English subtitles
Directed by: Aurélien Peyre
Written by: Aurélien Peyre
Produced by: Bruno Lévy & Julie Lescat (Move Movies)
Cinematography: Inès Tabarin
Original Score: Maud Geffray
Film Editing: Ludivine Cambus
Cast: Félix Lefebvre (Hugo), Anja Verderosa (Queen), Suzanne Jouannet (Colombe), Victor Bonnel (Paul), Sarah Henochsberg (Marie Bé), Nolan Masraf (Kamil), Marie Bucas-Français (Victoire), Jules Porier (Marceau)
International Sales: WTFilms

Synopsis

Nineteen-year-old Hugo spends his summers at his family’s house on an island off the Atlantic coast. But this year is different. Hugo actually looks different, and he shows up with his new girlfriend, Queen, a beautician with a glitzy style and effusive demeanor… which does not go over well with the locals. Aurélien Peyre‘s bittersweet coming-of-age first feature speaks volumes about both the giddiness and the blunders of first love, the cruelty of youth, the insecurities that make us vulnerable to the judgements of others, and the significance of remaining true to oneself.

Director’s biography

Thirty-three-year-old Aurélien Peyre makes his feature directorial debut with Trial by Fire, which won the Audience Award at this year’s Nouvelles Vagues Festival in Biarritz. He has previously written and directed two medium-length films: La bande de Juliette (2016) and Coqueluche (2018), which also explored notions of class contempt and gender stereotypes in a vacation house setting. In fact, Trial by Fire, which was released in France on August 13, is a revisiting and extended version of Peyre’s more stylized Coqueluche, which won the Ciné+ Prize at the 2018 Brive Film Festival.