Nino (France 2025: Dir Pauline Loquès)

The Nino of the title (Théodore Pellerin) is the personification of thousands of young men living in Paris. He's 28, on the cusp of 29, quiet and unassuming, currently single and working in a fairly uninspiring job. While attending a hospital one Friday, ostensibly to pick up a sick note for his employer, he gets a shock; the sore throat from which he's been suffering is actually cancerous, the result of a long dormant sexually transmitted disease.

The polite but direct doctor schedules him for immediate chemotherapy, starting the following Monday. As if that wasn't enough to take in, she also suggests that he donate his sperm as quickly as possible in that the treatment's potency will render him infertile.

Spat out onto the Paris streets, dazed and frightened, Nino returns home only to find that he's mislaid his door keys, and the building's concierge is absent. And so begins a weekend that we spend with the young man, in which the camera never takes its eye off him (Loquès places Pellerin front and centre in every scene; he's unable to escape our gaze) as he spends time with his mother (Jeanne Balibar), an ex who's in the process of moving to Montreal and to whom he may have transferred the infection, at a 'surprise' party in his honour, and finally with an old school chum (Salomé Dewaels) who he meets by chance.

The joy of Nino - if that's the right word for a movie about a man struggling to come to terms with a cancer diagnosis - is that the film resists mawkishness. We may feel immediate sympathy for the young man but his biggest battle is how to conquer the isolation in which the diagnosis has placed him, while preparing to tell his friends and loved ones.  

But Pellerin is supported by a handful of remarkable performances from the supporting cast. He and Balibar have some of the most intimate scenes in the movie; as mother and son their relationship is obviously close, and when Nino tries to explain the news from the hospital - which she mistakenly thinks is him about to confess that he's transitioning - he ends up telling her he's being treated for depression, possibly feeling guilty about how the cancer originated (later on, Balibar's ex husband Mathieu Amalric turns up in a cameo role). 

Nino is Loquès's first feature, and she's ably assisted by some superb cinematography by Lucie Baudinaud and fine editing by Clémence Diard, both resisting flashiness but effortlessly capturing Nino's fractured, distracted sense of himself and his surroundings. It's a simple but effective film, and at its centre is a casually riveting performance by Pellerin.

Nino is on release from 19 June 2026. 

Eden (France 2014: Dir Mia Hansen-Løve)

I'm old enough to admit that I never really 'got' the concept of DJing. To me the idea of somebody with a good taste in music, playing a load of their favourite records on a couple of turntables in front of hundreds of adoring fans, was always just a bit bizarre. EDEN does a lot both to change that view and, perversely, reinforce it.

EDEN is the story of Paul, a cool (or detached) teenager in Paris who abandons his creative writing studies in favour of his real passion - house music. It's also the story of youth, friendship and its fickleness, and how different souls navigate the path to adulthood - or not.

We see Paul gradually ascending to superstar DJ status, but never without money worries. The whole concept of DJing is shown as something which can induce euphoria - and these scenes are truly exciting - but has the same downside as more mainstream 'musicians' - the grind of setting up, the hangers on, seedy clubs and promoter disappointments. Paul is a complex soul whose interactions give us different perspectives: seen through the eyes of his mother (who constantly helps him financially) he's a bit of a loser; seen through the eyes of his girlfriends he's cut off and inconstant; but to the audience in his clubs he's an exciting route to a great evening.

EDEN takes place over a period of nearly twenty years, and in an interesting and bold move, the director chooses not to age Paul over this time, analogising his total commitment to his music despite it falling out of fashion and at the expense of other parts of his life. It also highlights Paul as a Peter Pan persona, remaining fixed in his own world while those around him grow up, have families and, in one very moving scene, take their own life. Around him the world also changes and moves on - decks get smaller and door security staff trade clipboards for tablets. When is commitment to a dream no longer a virtue to be admired but simply foolhardy? In one of his darker moments, a drunken Paul is helped home, and an elderly woman passing by mutters "Kids today..." to which Paul responds "I'm 34!" Does he want to be seen as young and mature at the same time?

Without giving too much away, this dichotomy eventually leads to a crisis of the soul. As a DJ is Paul really a relevant musician? The question is answered in two scenes; in one he witnesses a singer - all diva excesses and bling - PAing at a club night, demonstrating a vibrant vocal talent that shows up the relative inertia of Paul's art; and in another, towards the end of the movie, he observes the future of DJing - a woman with a single laptop playing a Daft Punk track to a swaying but otherwise immobile club audience (Daft Punk feature in the movie via a running gag in which, because of their anonymity, they always fail to make it onto clubs' VIP lists despite being ultra successful in their own right).

This isn't a perfect film by any means - it takes a while to find its groove, and the use of real artists sometimes gives the movie a rather flat feel - but ultimately it's very clever, generally extremely well paced, and the constantly roving camera perfectly captures the restlessness of youth. And my goodness it spoke to me about the challenges of getting older and leaving childish things behind.