New US Trailer for ‘The Super 8 Years’ About Growing Up in France

New US Trailer for ‘The Super 8 Years’ About Growing Up in France

by Alex Billington
December 13, 2022
Source: YouTube

“My mother lived with us. Her devotion to the children gives me freedom.” Kino Lorber has unveiled the official US trailer for an acclaimed French documentary film titled The Super 8 Years, which is landing in very limited US theaters starting this month. The film first premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival in Directors’ Fortnight, and it also recently played at the New York Film Festival in the fall. The Super 8 Years tells the early story of French writer and 2022 Nobel Prize awardee Annie Ernaux, best known for her acclaimed novels. She directs the film with her son, David, looking back at her time in France with two kids in the 1970s. It’s made up entirely of home video footage (from a Super 8 camera!) shot by Ernaux and her family from 1972 to 1981, which feeds directly into the themes of her work over the past 60 years. “Takes us from holidays and family rituals in suburban bourgeois France to trips abroad in Albania and Egypt, Spain and the USSR.” This looks like a very humble, thoughtful look back at one’s life and how everything changes.

New US trailer (+ poster) for Annie Ernaux & David Ernaux-Briot’s doc The Super 8 Years, on YouTube:

The French writer and 2022 Nobel Prize awardee Annie Ernaux, whose novels and memoirs have gained her a devoted following (and whose autobiographical L’Événement was adapted into Happening), opens a treasure trove with this delicate journey into her family’s memory. Compiled from gorgeously textured home movie images from 1972 to 1981 – when her first books were published, her sons became teenagers, and her husband Philippe brought an 8mm film camera everywhere they went – this portrait of a time, place, and moment of personal and political significance takes us from holidays and family rituals in suburban bourgeois France to trips abroad in Albania and Egypt, Spain and the USSR. Supplying her own introspective voiceover, Ernaux and her co-filmmaker, her son David, guide the viewer through fragments of a decade, diffuse and vivid in equal measure. The Super 8 Years is a remarkable visual extension of Annie Ernaux’s ongoing literary project to make sense of the mysterious past and the unknowable future.

The Super 8 Years, also known as Les Années Super-8 in French, is directed by the French writers Annie Ernaux & David Ernaux-Briot, both making their feature directorial debut. Produced by Philippe Martin and David Thion. This initially premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival in Directors’ Fortnight earlier this year, and it also played at the Zurich and New York Film Festivals. The film already premiered on TV in France in August. Kino Lorber will open The Super 8 Years doc in select US theaters starting on December 16th, 2022 this month, with more openings in January. For info visit their official site. Who’s interested?

Find more posts: Documentaries, Foreign Film, To Watch, Trailer