LOVE ACCORDING TO DALVA
(DALVA)
Saturday, October 15 – Truffaut Theatre – 10:35 pm
FICTION / DRAMA
FRENCH NEWAVE 2.0 & AFTER 10
WORLD CINEMA CO-PRODUCED BY FRANCE
Presented in Association with:
MK2 Films
Women in film
West Coast Premiere | Belgium, France | 2023 | Drama | 85 min | In French with English subtitles
Directed by: Emmanuelle Nicot
Written by: Emmanuelle Nicot
Produced by: Delphine Schmit (Tripode Productions), Julie Esparbes (Hélicotronc), Arte France Cinéma, RTBF
Cinematography: Caroline Guimbal
Film Editing: Suzana Pedro
Original Score: Frédéric Alvarez
Cast: Zelda Samson (Dalva), Alexis Manenti, Fanta Guirassi, Marie Denarnaud, Sandrine Blancke, Jean-Louis Coulloc’h, Yasmina Maiza
International Sales: MK2 Films
Emmanuelle Nicot‘s unflinching first feature, Love According to Dalva, serves up a bold, disquieting and psychologically complex study of a child suddenly confronting years of captivity and sexual abuse at the hands of her father. Adamantly proclaiming that she’s not a child, but a consenting woman who’s in love, 12-year-old Dalva rejects the very notion of her victimhood. The extent to which she’s locked into that perverse mindset and the incongruous role she was groomed to perform is chilling to behold. Even after she’s rescued and under the protection of social services, she insists upon wearing makeup and coquettish outfits to school. The journey she’s literally forced to embark upon — to reverse that process and somehow become a child again — will not be an easy one. Yet the director’s wisely dispassionate approach, and the resolve of her deft young actress, make that journey all the more profound and eloquent.
Belgian writer/director and casting director Emmanuelle Nicot grew up in the Ardennes department in northeastern France, where she barely went to the movies before the age of 18. She began by studying modern literature, but eventually graduated from the IAD Institute of Media Arts in Belgium in 2012. Her first short film, RAE (2012), garnered 15 awards. Her second short, Snatched (2016), about two roommates in a foster home, won 17 prizes. Love According to Dalva, her first feature film, premiered in the International Critics’ Week parallel section at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, where it was honored with the FIPRESCI prize, the Rail d’or and the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award for its astonishing young lead, Zelda Samson.
