Faustine’s father immortalized in family films the most beautiful moments of his life, while her mother’s difficulties struck the blind spot of his images. Today the filmmaker revisits these films to tell another story: the one of a woman who sees her role as a mother gradually taking away her freedom.
SCREENINGS & AWARDS
World Premiere: DOK Leipzig International Competition 2022
2022 L’Alternativa (Spanish Premiere)
2023 Festival de cinéma En ville (Belgian Premiere)
2023 Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentaries and Short Films (Egyptian Premiere)
2023 One World Prague (Czech Premiere)
2023 Festival Imagésanté
2023 Crossing Europe (Austrian Premiere)
2023 ethnocineca – International Documentary Film Festival Vienna
Upcoming: Biografilm (June 9-19), Rencontres du film documentaire de Mellionnec (June 22-25)
AWARDS
- Prize of the Interreligious Jury at DOK Leipzig 2022
- Silver Dove for best long documentary or animated film by an up-and-coming director in the International Competition at DOK Leipzig 2022
JURY STATEMENT
For taking a bold look at her family, while yearning to understand her mother – any mother; For learning to see her mother the way her mother sees herself – any woman; For learning a new narrative about a family and herself. In seeking to understand a family’s pain, this film gives voice to the primal scream of women, wives and mothers everywhere. For this, the jury awards the Silver Dove to A Life Like Any Other.
- Special Mention in International Feature Film competition at L’Alternativa 2022
- Don Quixote International Feature Film Special Mention at L’Alternativa 2022
- Prize of the Jury for Best Belgian Film at Festival de cinéma En Ville! 2023
JURY STATEMENT
“We chose to award a film that has a personal point of view on a universal societal subject, without miserabilism and with a filmmaker’s point of view, fluid and captivating.”
- Special Mention in the International Competition at Festival de cinéma En Ville! 2023
JURY STATEMENT
“A very important film that touches the heart of the conflict between cinema and life but also between men and women, and that shows and does not give a lesson. It is a film that traces a path of rehabilitation through understanding while being very tender.”
- Best Feature Documentary Award at Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentaries and Short Films 2023
“Through a clever assemblage of family footage and newly-shot material, the director has transformed a personal narrative into a cinematic work, creating an imperfect family portrait, with tenderness and humor. It is a remarkable film that blends personal intimacy and political relevance. This film fills a rather blind spot in cinema by exploring the complex subject of depression and the challenges of motherhood.It questions the tight relationship between filming life and living it, and what cinema can provide as answers to our questions. It is an ode to freedom through a human gaze, unconfined bywalls, celebrating movement.”
- 2022 Scam Award for Best Documentary
PRESS
Reviews: Testkammer (DE), Business Doc Europe (EN), Cineuropa (EN), Modern Times Review (EN), The Film Verdict (EN) Interviews: Mediapart (FR), Testkammer (DE/EN)
***
“A searching and honest recalibration of one family’s narrative, as the director reinterprets her father’s obsessive home movies from her mother’s perspective of domestic unfulfillment.”
Carmen Gray, The Film Verdict
“[Cros’s] documentary is a sensitive and sympathetic portrait of the outstanding personality of her mother. But it is also a unique and unprecedented portrayal of the destructive impact of the daily routine of motherly care.”
Melita Zajc, Modern Times Review
A Life Like Any Other is a delicate and sensitive personal film in which Cros produces an in-depth portrait of an era, without making any judgement of her father, or men in general. The combination of archive footage, interviews and observation is exquisitely edited by Cédric Zoenen and Cros (who is herself an experienced editor) to balance the love that clearly exists in the family with the most telling, painful moments.
Vladan Petkovic, Cineuropa
DIRECTOR’S BIOGRAPHY & FILMOGRAPHY
Faustine Cros
Born in 1988, Faustine Cros graduated from INSAS (Belgium) in editing. In her work, she plays with hybrid forms between documentary, auto-fiction, experimental, mixing her own images and family archives. Her graduation film “La Détesteuse” was selected and awarded at many international festivals. “A life like any other” is her first film produced by Julie Freres at Dérives.
CREDITS
Direction, screenplay Faustine Cros
Cinematography Jean-Louis Cros, Faustine Cros
Sound Faustine Cros
Editing Cédric Zoenen, Faustine Cros
Composer Ferdinand Cros
Producer Julie Freres, Camille Laemlé
Production company Dérives, Les Films D’Ici
Co-production SIC – Sound image culture, CBA-Centre de l’Audiovisuel à Bruxelles, RTBF
PRODUCER’S BIOGRAPHY & FILMOGRAPHY
Julie Freres
Julie Freres is the producer of Dérives in Belgium, a structure for supporting and accompanying young filmmakers created in 1977 by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. She has produced about sixty creative documentaries, focusing mainly on first and atypical films. Recent productions include “Dans la maison” (IDFA 20), “Ailleurs, Partout” (IFFR 20), “In a silent way” (CPHDox 20), and co-productions “Petit samedi” (Berlinale 20), “Sous le nom de Tania” (Berlinale 19) and “D’un château l’autre” (Locarno 18). Julie graduated from the IAD film school in directing, and worked as a director at RTBF (Belgian Television). Today, she teaches production at INSAS, is a member of the Cinema Commission of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation and of Wallonia Image Production.
PRODUCTION COMPANY
Dérives
Belgium
julie@derives.be
+32 (0)4 342 49 39
https://www.derives.be
Les Films D’Ici
France
https://www.lesfilmsdici.fr/en/
