Sunday 15th February at 3.15pm & 7.15pm
la Bataille de Solférino 2012 (U)
English Title: Age of Panic
Director: justine triet
Run Time 1h 33mins
A firecracker debut and marital drama shot amid the chaos of the actual French 2012 presidential election
On 6 May 2012, the day of the second round of the French presidential election, TV journalist Laetitia is late leaving home for her assignment covering the events at the headquarters of the Socialist Party on Rue de Solférino when her ex-husband shows up a day late to his court-appointed time to visit their two daughters.
There is not a moment of stillness or silence in La Bataille. The film follows the journalist as she runs around Paris interviewing voters on election day while also trying to keep her ex away from their two kids. Laetitia Dosch’s performance as the exasperated mother is a real tour de force, complemented by the volatile energy of beloved French actor Vincent Macaigne in his role as the absentee father. Comedy, in the form of a new easy-going boyfriend lightens the familial strife that otherwise consumes the screen, showing private disputes unfold in public spaces, and placing France’s many contradictions in sharp focus as life’s daily dramas are transformed into political treatises.
Director Justine Triet spent her early career documenting protests and political strife in her native France. A short documentary about Paris’s youth protests and her subsequent exposé on the 2007 presidential election cycle (Solférino 2009) set the stage for this, her fiction debut in 2012. Triet went on to win the 2023 Palme D’Or and an Oscar in 2023 for Anatomy of a Fall.
Trailer for La Bataille de Solférino/Age of Panic
book tickets for le bataille de solférino
Tickets cost £6