Is the kid in the film really a "Little Nature"?

•  A 10-year-old child falls in love with his teacher, who does not respond to the boy's wishes but helps him to develop intellectually.

• “Petite nature” tackles delicate subjects without leaving room for controversy or ambiguity.

• Discovered at Critics' Week, this sensitive film was rewarded at Angoulême.

It is a sensitive and fascinating semi-autobiographical work that Samuel Theis offers with

, discovered in 2021 at the Cannes Critics' Week of the Cannes Film Festival, and rewarded with the Valois des Etudiants francophones in Angoulême.

A 10-year-old boy falls in love with his teacher played by Antoine Reinartz.

The latter obviously does not respond to the passion of the child, on the contrary imposes distances on him while making him discover the culture.

“It's my story up to a certain point, explains Samuel Theis to

.

I talk about my childhood and the way I emancipated myself from my original environment before launching into cinema.

Co-director of

, a film which won the Camera d'or in 2014, the forty-year-old has made his first solo film here.

And it is very successful.

No controversy!

“I tried to show this tender age without complacency and without taboos, he specifies.

The first emotions felt by the hero seem to me as important as the fact that he struggles to find his place among his own.

Samuel Theis hides no subject and does not hesitate to underline the budding sexuality of a child attracted to an adult.

“The strength of my character comes from the fact that there is no ambiguity on his part, confides Antoine Reinartz who plays the teacher.

He is embarrassed by the attraction that his student feels towards him and it is absolutely not reciprocated.

The child nevertheless fell in love with this teacher who gave him confidence in his intellect.

It is not on the side of scandal or controversy lies the interest of

.

What Samuel Theis shows is the birth of a cruel but indispensable awakening.

“I tried to find what I felt at that age, insists the director, without making the judgment of the adult that I have become.

The film rings true both in the reactions of the kid and in those of those around him.

All the actors, known or not, are fabulous with a special mention for Izia Higelin in the role of the wife of the teacher and for the beginner Mélissa Olexa, in that of the mother of the hero.

“Dive back into my past was painful, recognizes the filmmaker.

I relived my disarray and my desire of yesteryear with one certainty: the difference between an adult and a child is that the adult is responsible for his actions while the child is not.

Petite

leaves no doubt about it but finds the perfect tone to share the journey of a sensitive child who will grow up because of this unrequited love.

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• Carol's choice

• Critics' Week

• Movie theater

• 20 minute video

• Teacher

• Child

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