Cannes: "The Eight Mountains", bromance at the top of the peaks

The film, adapted from a best-selling novel, tells of the life-and-death friendship between two boys Pietro and Bruno, played by Italians Luca Marinelli ("Martin Eden) and Alessandro Borghi, and was filmed in Italian in the Alps.

"We were struck by the purity and honesty of the characters", explains to AFP Felix van Groeningen, who says he had an almost "divine" experience while filming in the high mountains: "there is no cynicism , something very pure" in the relationship between Pietro, the only son of a Milanese couple who spend all their summers in a small mountain village, and a local kid, Bruno, a young cowherd.

The film by this Flemish couple, carried by the splendor of the Alpine landscapes, opens with their carefree childhood friendship in the mountain pastures.

"Les Huit Montagnes" also explores the question of paternity: Bruno rejects his alcoholic father, while Pietro will never be able to understand his father, an engineer passionate about mountains who would have dreamed of a son like Bruno.

"Our two fathers each died when we were young", notes Charlotte Vandermeersch, actress who is taking her first steps in directing and confides alongside her companion and co-director that the shooting of this film was like therapy for them. , designed during the confinements, while their couple was floundering.

"We were in a difficult moment to talk to each other. Making this film was a way to talk about these lives (characters, editor's note), to talk to each other", she explains.

(lr) Belgian filmmakers Felix van Groeningen, Charlotte Vandermeersch and Italian actor Alessandro Borghi arrive for the presentation of the film "The Eight Mountains", on May 18, 2022 at the Cannes Film Festival PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA AFP

Charlotte Vandermeersch had already filmed with her companion and worked on the writing of her film "Alabama Monroe" (2013).

But this is the first time that she has teamed up throughout the production of a film with Felix Van Groeningen ("The Merditude of Things", 2009), of which this is the seventh film.

© 2022 AFP