‘Gagarine’ Directors Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh Talk ‘The Green Eyes’ as Kinology Announces First Sales: ‘Dreamers Know No Borders’ (EXCLUSIVE) 

Having boarded as the sales agent of Locarno Film Festival‘s “The Green Eyes,” Kinology has pre-sold “The Green Eyes” to Benelux (Cinart), Switzerland (Filmcoopi), Turkey (Chantier) and the former Yugoslavia region (MCF).

Distribution in France will be handled by Haut et Court, one of the film’s producers.

Directed by Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh – also known for “Gagarine” – the film will open this year’s Locarno’s Film Festival on Aug. 5, playing at Locarano’s Piazza Grande.

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“Fanny and Jérémy are among the most inspired and inspiring French filmmakers today, and Kinology couldn’t be happier to be part of their magnificent comeback after the wonderful ‘Gagarine’,” said its founder and CEO Grégoire Melin, noting their “unique blend of social and magical realism.”

The film is produced by June Films and Haut et Court and co-produced by Les Films du Fleuve and Hobab.

In “The Green Eyes,” Liatard and Trouilh follow little Chaya, who lives with her family in the Landes region in France. But when they learn they’re being evicted, her older brother Nour falls into a mysterious sleep.

“We first learned about ‘resignation syndrome’ five years ago, through a photography exhibition featuring two sisters affected by this condition,” Liatard and Trouilh told Variety.

“These little girls were sleeping side by side, locked in a deep sleep ever since their family’s request for asylum had been denied. Those images deeply moved us. When we realized that hundreds of children had been affected by this condition, we wondered what these young children, trapped in their sleep, were dreaming about. That was the starting point for our desire to tell a story from a child’s perspective and dive into the dreams of a little girl who will do everything she can to wake her big brother up.”

Liatard and Trouilh decided to answer Variety’s questions together. 

“We do everything together,” they admitted. 

“We’ve been working as a directing duo for over 10 years now, and we feel lucky to be able to share this journey together. We still don’t divide up the work.” 

Thorough research was important in order to address this disease in the film.

“It truly exists, even if we then venture into the realms of fiction and magic. We met doctors who specialize in this disease and young people who have awakened from it, sometimes after several years of deep lethargy. These powerful testimonies conveyed to us the sheer strength of these children.” 

They also inspired the resilience of Chaya and Nour’s.

“In our story, Chaya never loses hope of saving her brother, and it is thanks to the love that binds them and the power of her imagination that she succeeds.”

Douae Butarbuch M’Zaouki, Sayyid El Alami, Anamaria Vartolomei, Arcadi Radeff, Omar Al Jbaai star. 

Liatard and Trouilh combined reality and fiction in their award-winning “Gagarine,” where a boy who wants to become an astronaut tries to save his home from demolition. 

“We love to explore reality without being realistic! Diving into the imagination and our characters’ dreams allows us to explore their emotions in a very visual way.” 

In “The Green Eyes,” the Landes forest, where they filmed, is already “magical in itself.” 

“There’s this lighthouse standing in the middle of the pine forest, and a little village covered in sand. It’s a paradise for these children, but also the place where all their traumas are replayed,” they said. They also praised Guillaume Laurant (“Amélie,” “I Lost My Body”), who joined them as a screenwriter. 

“He shared some of the magic of his vision with us.”

“It’s always a major challenge for us to strike the right balance between realism and magical elements. On the one hand, it was important to ground the film in real everyday life, and the archive footage helps us connect with the reality of the syndrome. On the other hand, we wanted to delve into Chaya’s imagination until the boundary between dream and reality gradually blurred.”

They enjoy focusing on younger protagonists who are not afraid to dream. 

“Dreamers know no borders; they invent the worlds of their choice. These worlds are refugees, and when reality becomes too violent, they can serve as escape routes,” they noted. 

“It’s true that children and teenagers often find it easier to immerse themselves in their imaginations. But it’s also the hearts of adult dreamers that we hope to reach.”