The Assayas family certainly has reason to celebrate this fall, as director Olivier Assayas will be stopping by both Toronto International Film Festival and New York Film Festival with Clouds of Sils Maria, joined by his wife, Mia Hansen-Løve. Eden, her follow-up to the fantastic Goodbye First Love, was high amongst our most-anticipated films of the year, and now it’ll also be premiering at both festivals.
The DJ drama follows rise of the French electronic-music boom in the 1990s as it’s based on the real-life story of Hansen-Løve’s brother (and co-writer) Sven. While Greta Gerwig and Brady Corbet are part of the cast, they aren’t on display in the new images which have landed, as these mostly feature lead Felix De Givry (who was in Assayas’ Something in the Air). Check out the new stills below, along with a better idea of what to expect from the film, thanks to a NYFF synopsis.
Mia Hansen-Løve’s fourth feature is a rare achievement: an epically scaled work built on the purely ephemeral, breathlessly floating along on currents of feeling. Eden is based on the experiences of Hansen-Løve’s brother (and co-writer) Sven, who was one of the pioneering DJs of the French rave scene in the early 1990s. Paul (Félix de Givry) and his friends, including Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter (otherwise known as Daft Punk), see visions of ecstasy in garage music—as their raves become more and more popular, they experience a grand democracy of pure bliss extending into infinity, only to dematerialize on contact with changing times and the demands of everyday life. Hansen-Løve’s film plays in the mind as a swirl of beautiful faces and bodies, impulsive movements, rushes of cascading light and color (she worked with a great cameraman, Denis Lenoir), and music, music, and more music. Eden is a film that moves with the heartbeat of youth, always one thought or emotion ahead of itself.
Are you looking forward to Eden?