THE MAN WITH A THOUSAND FACES
(L’homme aux mille visages)
CINEMA COMPETITION
DOCUMENTARY PROGRAM
TRUFFAUT THEATRE
Presented in association with:
Pyramide International
Women In Film
TITRAFILM
North American Premiere | France | 2024 | Documentary | 90 min | In French with English subtitles
Directed by: Sonia Kronlund
Written by: Sonia Kronlund
Produced by: Elizabeth Perez, Baptiste Gaudeau (CHAZ Productions), Sonia Kronlund (SKP Productions), Klaudia Smienja (Madants), Ernst Goldschmidt (Sovereign Pictures), Dan Weschler (Bord Cadre Films)
Cinematography: Zara Popovici, Alexander Nanau, Filip Dróżdż, Julien Poupard
Film Editing: Sophie Brunet
International Sales: Pyramide International
His name is Alexandre, Ricardo, Daniel. He claims to be a surgeon, an engineer, from Argentina, from Brazil… And he lives with at least four different women simultaneously — women literally scattered across the planet. Adapting his backstory, profession, nationality and personality to each of his lovers, our mystery man seems to juggle identities effortlessly… until documentary filmmaker Sonia Kronlund gets wind of his story and is determined to track him down. By her own admission, neither judge nor shrink, the filmmaker constructs a veritable detective story, mischievously weaving together the astonishing, surprisingly funny tale of a modern-day Don Juan con artist.
Sonia Kronlund began her career writing articles for the prestigious Cahiers du Cinéma magazine. She has been a radio journalist since 1995, first for France Inter public radio, then for France-Culture, where she has produced and hosted the daily program Les Pieds sur terre since 2002. As a journalist, she has specialized in reporting on the countries of Afghanistan, Iran and Japan, and has produced documentary programming for ARTE. She was a cowriter on Thomas Gilou’s feature film Rai, which was awarded the 1995 Golden Leopard in Locarno. In 2017, she directed her first documentary feature, Nothingwood which premiered in the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight and at COLCOA the following year. The Man with a Thousand Faces was first produced as a podcast, then as a book, and finally as this documentary feature, which was released in France in April of this year.