Nino (2025 film)
| Nino | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Pauline Loquès |
| Written by | Maud Ameline Pauline Loquès |
| Produced by | Sandra De Fonseca |
| Starring | Théodore Pellerin William Lebghil Salome Dewaels Jeanne Balibar |
| Cinematography | Lucie Baudinaud |
| Edited by | Clémence Diard |
Production company | Blue Monday Productions |
Release date |
|
Running time | 96 minutes |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
Nino is a French drama film, directed by Pauline Loquès and released in 2025.[1] The film stars Théodore Pellerin as Nino, a shy young man who has been diagnosed with throat cancer on the eve of his 29th birthday, and must confront his possible mortality over the weekend before beginning chemotherapy treatment.[1]
The film had its world premiere in the Critics' Week of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival on 18 May 2025, where Pellerin won the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award.[2]
Cast
- Théodore Pellerin as Nino
- William Lebghil
- Salomé Dewaels
- Jeanne Balibar
- Camille Rutherford
- Estelle Meyer
- Victoire Du Bois
- Mathieu Amalric
Production
Loquès's full-length directorial debut, the film was shot in fall 2024 in Paris.[3]
Distribution
The film premiered in the Critics' Week program at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival,[1] where Pellerin won the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award.[2]
It is slated to screen in the Platform Prize program at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival on 7 September 2025.[4][5]
Critical response
Allan Hunter of Screen Daily wrote that "Nino is not a film that tugs at the heartstrings. It is quietly observant, encouraging a feeling of intimacy through extensive use of close-ups and the comforting anonymity to be found in a big city. Exposing Nino to friends, family and the wisdom of strangers (including a brief cameo from Mathieu Almaric) gently leads him down a path towards choosing life. Pellerin successfully inhabits Nino's diffidence and reserve, but his modest smiles and fond looks effectively convey how the character gradually warms up."[1]
For Cineuropa, Fabien Lemercier wrote that "naturally moving, the film nevertheless successfully combines lightness, tenderness and humour with the dramatic heart of its subject, allowing the director to explore in small ways the difficulties (inherent in the modern world) of expressing, feeling, really looking at others, opening the window to free one's emotions and share them."[6]
References
- ^ a b c d Allan Hunter, "'Nino' review: A cancer diagnosis prompts a weekend of reckoning in tender French drama". Screen Daily, 22 May 2025.
- ^ a b Elsa Keslassy, "Cannes' Critics Week and Directors Fortnight Prizewinners 'Nino' and 'Wild Foxes' Sell to Major Territories". Variety, 4 June 2025.
- ^ Fabien Lemercier, "Shoot about to kick off for Pauline Loquès' Nino". Cineuropa, 3 October 2024.
- ^ Kate Erbland, "TIFF 2025's Auteur-Focused Platform Competition Will Be Juried by Two Rising Filmmakers and Oscar Nominee Marianne Jean-Baptiste". IndieWire, 22 July 2025.
- ^ "Nino". TIFF. Retrieved 12 August 2025.
- ^ Fabien Lemercier, "Review: Nino". Cineuropa, 18 May 2025.