16/10/2013 - La Tendresse, a comedy of manners with autobiographical aspects directed by Marion Hänsel, is released today in Belgian theatres

Lisa and Frans loved each other, a long time ago. They left each other too. From this union of mind and spirit was born a child, Jack. So when the latter is the victim of a skiing accident, Lisa and Frans hit the road for Switzerland to join him, and, thanks to a shared room, they recreate during these few hundred kilometres an intimacy that had been lost. It is an occasion to question what becomes of feelings: can they disappear completely or how do they transform? Can we be indifferent to the one we once loved? Can complicity reappear magically?

After Black Ocean [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Sounds of Sand [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], Marion Hänsel moves away from her usual register with La Tendresse [+see also:
trailer
interview: Marion Hänsel
film profile], a light and melancholic comedy of manners, both in terms of the tone and the process, since this is not an adaptation, like her previous projects, but indeed a story largely inspired by her own life, in a soft autobiographical style.

To serve her story, she works again with Adrien Jolivet (The Snows of Kilimanjaro [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Robert Guédiguian
interview: Robert Guédiguian
film profile], Armed Hands [+see also:
trailer
film profile], La très très grande entreprise [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) – whom she already directed in Black Ocean –, and gives the two main roles to the must-see and impeccable actor Olivier Gourmet, and Maryline Canto (whose first film as a director is expected, Sense of Humor [+see also:
trailer
film profile], after being unveiled in Locarno), who thus has the difficult task of playing the director’s cinema alter ego, which she does with candour and lightness.

The film is produced by Man’s Films Productions, A.S.A.P. Films and Neue Pegasos Film, in coproduction with the RTBF and ZDF/ARTE, and with the backing of the CCA, Wallimage and the Rhônes-Alpes region. Cinéart will handle the distribution in 9 theatres in Wallonia, Brussels and Gand.

(Translated from French)