With two shorts and a TV drama to her name, Emilie Deleuze (daughter of the late French philosopher Gilles Deleuze) developed her first feature from a year-long visit to an Adult Education and Training Centre for men who require new skills to operate heavy machinery on construction sites. As its title suggests, New Dawn is a film about transformation. Alain (Samuel Le Bihan) is thirty years old, married, and the father of a four-year-old girl. Bored with the endless routine and lack of challenge in his job as a tester of video games, Alain enrols in a training programme to operate building site machinery. Located in Correze, far from Paris and his family, he forms a unique and affecting relationship with fellow trainee Manu (Marcial Di Fonzo Bo), a nonconformist who helps Alain to make a new start in life. Winner of the International Critics Prize at last year’s Cannes Festival, Deleuze’s film reveals a rarely seen world of male intimacy, set against the lumbering grace of heavy machinery.

France, 1999.
English subtitles.
Colour.
Dolby stereo SR.
96 mins.