LES
AMITIÉS MALÉFIQUES
POISON FRIENDS |
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Director: Emmanuel Bourdieu
Screenplay: Emmanuel Bourdieu, Marcia Romano
Cast:
Eloi: Malik Zidi
André: Thibault Vinçon
Alexandre: Alexandre Steiger
Edouard : Thomas Blanchard
Marguerite : Natacha Régnier
Professeur Mortier: Jacques Bonnaffé
Awards:
SACD Screewriting Award, Grand Golden Rail and Critics
Week Grand Prize, Cannes Film Festival (2006)
Most Promising Actor (Malik Zidi), César Awards
(2007)
Running time: 100’
Production: France 2006
Rating: Not Rated
Gauge: 35mm and DVD (color)
Genre: Drama
Distributor: Strand Releasing
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"Writer-director
Emmanuel Bourdieu does his bit to fight the homogenization
of world cinema in "Poison Friends". Miraculously,
pic explores the pretentiousness of the Paris-centric
literary scene without pretension. One never knows who
may end up as burnt toast as engaging tale of ambition,
fabulation, romance and deceit goes through its well-played
and nicely lensed paces".
Lisa Nesselson, Variety |
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Eloi, a reserved
but passionate literature student and son of a well-known
writer, befriends André, a brilliant and charismatic
student willing to stand up for true literature and criticizing
vehemently his peers for their desire to write and published.
Mesmerized by André’s impressive intelligence,
Eloi and his friends, Alexandre and Edouard, let André
become their mentor. With Andre’s help, Alexander enters
a famed theatre school and Eloi has the courage to ask Pr.
Mortier to supervise his dissertation. Edouard, on the other
hand, is soon despised by Andre as he committed the “sin”
of having a short story published. This caused Eloi to throw
away the book he has been working on. Soon, Eloi and Alexandre
discover that André lies, but their admiration for
him takes time to erode. The two friends are not the only
ones who become disappointed with André; Pr. Mortier,
who has the utmost admiration for this bright student, discovers
his mediocrity while reading his dissertation. He refuses
to grant him a Ph.D. and André threatens him. Faced
with humiliation, André pretends that an important
research job in a American University awaits while he is in
fact joining the French army as a literature instructor. In
the meantime, Eloi’s book is recovered by his mother
and published to critical acclaim, and Alexander’s career
in theatre is flourishing. Caught in a maelstrom of deceptions,
André will finally have to confront both the success
and rejection of his friends.
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| PHOTO Strand Releasing
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