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PRODUCTION France / Belgium

End of shooting in sight for Éric Barbier's Small Country: an African Childhood

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- The filmmaker plunges us into the heart of Burundi in 1992 as the tragedy of the Rwandan civil war comes to light in a production produced by Jerico and sold by Pathé

End of shooting in sight for Éric Barbier's Small Country: an African Childhood
A photo on the set of Small Country: an African Childhood (© Super 8 Productions)

Filming on Eric Barbier's Small Country: an African Childhood [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
enters the home stretch in Rwanda, where it’s due to wrap on 12 March before a final day of filming in Paris. This is the 6th feature by the filmmaker, known for his debut Le Brasier (Jean Vigo prize in 1991), as well as The Snake [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
(2006), The Last Diamond [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
(2014) and Promise at Dawn [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
(1 million admissions in France at the end of 2017 and four César Award nominations in 2018).

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The film stars Jean-Paul Rouve (winner of a César Award in 2003 for Most Promising Performance and nominated for a César in 2005 for Best Supporting Actor in Podium, also very popular in the Les Tuche [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
trilogy, recently appreciated in C'est La Vie! [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
and Dalida [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
and due to hit our screens in 2019 in Je voudrais que quelqu'un m'attende quelque part), Djibril Vancoppenolle and Dayla de Medina.

Written by the director after the novel Small Country by Gaël Faye, the film focuses on the story of Gabriel in 1992, a 10-year-old boy who lives in Burundi with his French father (Rouve), an entrepreneur, his Rwandan mother and his little sister, Ana, in a comfortable ex-pat neighbourhood. Despite enjoying a peaceful childhood, his life soon changes course when his parents separate, civil war looms and tragedy strikes in Rwanda...

Produced by Eric Jehelmann and Philippe Rousselet for Jerico and by Jérôme Salle for Super 8 Production, Small Country: an African Childhood was co-produced by France 2 Cinéma, the Belgian outfit Scope Pictures and by Pathé, which will be also managing the film’s French distribution and international sales. Pre-purchased by Canal + and Ciné +, the feature film benefited from eight weeks of filming (which kicked off on 14 January), with Antoine Sanier on board as the director of photography.

For the record, Jerico has also worked on Remi, Nobody's Boy [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, Penny Pincher! [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, The Bélier Family [+see also:
trailer
making of
film profile
]
and Promise at Dawn.

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(Translated from French)

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