FATHER TIME
WINTER BOY A gay teen comes of age while mourning a loved one in this emotional drama.
Why do we find it so hard to say things are bad?’ asks the 17-year-old hero of Winter Boy as he grapples with grief and confusion in the wake of his dad’s sudden death. It’s a question Christophe Honoré has had to find his own answer to, having lost his father when he himself was a teenager.
Having previously addressed that loss in novels and a play, it was perhaps only a matter of time before the French director confronted the subject on screen. ‘Certain things have to be dealt with at some point,’ he tells Teasers. ‘This film could have happened sooner in my career, but I managed to hold it at bay for quite some time.’ Honoré was adamant, however, that Winter Boy
would refract his experience through a contemporary lens. ‘It was important for me to set the film in the present and make the main character a boy of today,’ the 52-year-old continues. ‘I didn’t want nostalgia to have any bearing.’
Shot in Paris during the recent pandemic, Winter Boy has its protagonist, Lucas Ronis (talented newcomer Paul Kircher), struggle with complex feelings while simultaneously exploring his independence and homosexuality. Juliette Binoche plays his mother, Isabelle, while Honoré regular Vincent Lacoste plays his older brother Quentin.
When casting Lucas’ father, meanwhile, Honoré put his faith in another acting novice – namely himself. ‘I’m the one person on earth who looks most like my father so it seemed natural that I get the role,’ he says. ‘And I couldn’t have cast an actor anyway; it would have felt obscene or indecent. Making personal films can rewrite the memories on which they are based. So it felt necessary for me to inscribe my image on those frames where I try to reconstitute the very last memories I have of him…’
‘I didn’t want nostalgia to have any bearing’ CHRISTOPHE HONORÉ