La bataille de Solférino
Age of Panic
Justine Triet
»What was exciting was that the activists in the Rue de Solferino thought that Laetitia’s enacted ›news‹ was genuine and even pushed behind her to get on to television. […] The same applies to the dispute between Vincent and Laetitia after the announcement of the election results. The security guards of the PS (Parti Socialiste) believed that Vincent wanted to tackle a real TV journalist, and tried to bundle him out.«
– Justine Triet
Sunday, 6 March 2012, early in the morning. The television journalist Laetitia is going to cover the presidential elections. Just as she’s about to leave her home in the Rue de Solferino, her ex-husband Vincent appears. He has not yet overcome the separation, suffers from depression and wants to see his two daughters. In this charged atmosphere, a custody battle unfolds that takes on increasingly grotesque forms. Contributing to that chaos: two agitated young girls, a fraught babysitter, a lover, a lawyer and a Grande Nation torn between a new start and a deep depression.
»Justine Triet’s film debut […] is thus a shattering but coherent portrait of today’s France caught between the public and the private spheres, madness and stagnation, nervous crisis and panic attack. […] ›How are things? Bad, thank you‹. A reply that aptly summarises La bataille de Solférino.«
– Olivier Père, Arte
Awards for ›La Bataille de Solférino‹
Prix ACID, Festival de Cannes, 2013 | Prix du Public, Festival Paris Cinéma 2013 | Preis der Filmkritik, 30. Französische Filmtage Tübingen, Stuttgart 2013
Justine Triet
Justine Triet, born 1973, studied at the École nationale supérieure des beaux arts, the National School of Fine Arts in Paris. She has already made several films asking questions about the role of the individual within a group. In 2008, she produced Solférino – a documentary about the French presidential elections. In 2012, Vilaine fille mauvais garçon (aka Two Ships, her first short film) was awarded a PRIX EFA at the Berlin International Film Festival. La bataille de Solférino is Ms Triet’s first feature film.
Films by Justine Triet:
Vilaine fille mauvais garçon 2010 | Des ombres dans la maison 2009 | Solférino 2008 | Sur place 2007