Ticket deal: 5 films for €45 / 10 films for €80 available from the Box Office or on 01 679 3477.

Jacques (Pierre Deladonchamps, Stranger by the Lake), a middle-aged, HIV-positive Parisian writer who has a young son to raise, and bisexual Arthur (Vincent Lacoste), a university student and aspiring filmmaker some ten years younger, spot each other at a screening of Jane Campion’s The Piano. Beginning as a fling, Arthur and Jacques’s relationship develops as they learn to negotiate the terms of their romance tempered by inescapable illness and mortality. Stunningly edited, this subtly melancholic film weaves a rich palette of cultural references heightened by a pop-soaked 1990s soundtrack.

Director’s Note: Novelist turned director Christophe Honoré (Love Songs) explores personal memories in this enveloping, vibrant queer romantic drama set in early 1990s France when AIDS was at its height.

Notes by David O’Mahony

Official Selection, Cannes Film Festival Competition 2018

Screening as part of the IFI French Film Festival – November 14th to 25th