Just a year after winning the Prix Jean Vigo for the deeply affecting short La Vie des morts – which screened here in 2011 – Desplechin employed many of the same actors, including Emmanuel Salinger, Marianne Denicourt and Emmanuelle Devos, to make this, his innovative feature debut.

Part thriller, part sociological study, The Sentinel follows Salinger’s Mathias Barillet, a forensic medical student who decides to leave recently reunified Germany to study in Paris. After an unsettling journey by train, involving some trouble with border police and a run-in with a threatening stranger, Mathias discovers something sinister in his luggage, which he nevertheless finds utterly fascinating. (Notes by Alice Butler.)

This film is screening as part of the Arnaud Desplechin Programme which will continue during the 14th Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival (November 20th – December 1st 2013).

The full season features five of Desplechin’s films:  My Sex Life… or How I Got Into an Argument (1996), Esther Kahn (2000), Kings and Queen (2004), A Christmas Tale (2008) and the premiere of his latest work, Jimmy P. (Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian) (2013).

We are delighted and honoured that Arnaud Desplechin will be attending the Festival to introduce his films Jimmy P. (Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian) and A Christmas Tale, and will host a masterclass on November 22nd.