“Shot on location during the 2024 Olympics, Valentine Cadic’s gentle Rohmer-like feature debut follows a woman (Blandine Madec) arriving in Paris right in the middle of the sports-induced chaos in the month of August. Blandine, who hails from Normandy and is not used to the big city life, struggles to get settled in at first as she has to navigate the realities of finding – and keeping – a place to stay at a time when the population increases exponentially.
But the Olympic Games are not the only reason Blandine is in the French capital. In fact, they’re not even the main reason, no matter how much she insists otherwise. What actually gives her joy during this trip is getting to reconnect with her half-sister Julie (India Hair), with whom she hasn’t had any real contact in ten years, and meet her young niece Alma (Lou Deleuze) for the first time. As she juggles new and old relationships, Blandine slowly figures out how to get by in a world so alien to her, while the athletic frenzy dominates the entire city.
Though set towards the potentially melancholic end of the summer, the film remains a very breezy affair, its 75 minutes conveying a sense of free-spiritedness where fiction and reality intermingle effortlessly. It’s a warm and charming piece of independent filmmaking where a huge event becomes a delightful excuse to just hang out with an unconventional family for little over an hour. And by the time we’re done, we kind of wish we could stay with them a little longer.” -Max Borg, The Film Verdict
That Summer in Paris screens as part of the Young French Cinema program made possible with the support of Unifrance and Villa Albertine – French Institute for Culture and Education in the United States.
