FÉLIX DE GIVRY | FRANCE, BELGIUM | 2026 | 93 MIN | FRENCH
Anatomy of a Fall’s Milo Machado-Graner leads this beautifully 16mm-shot coming-of-age romance about a fed-up, bullied teen staging a disappearing act and the only lonely girl who knows his secret.
If there is one universal truth that can be taken from over 100 years of cinema, it’s this: Growing up sucks. Yet in Goodbye Cruel World, the splendid feature debut of director/co-writer Félix de Givry, 14-year-old Otto (Milo Machado-Graner, Anatomy of a Fall PFF32) believes he has had a harder time than most and is ready to do something drastic. Before taking the plunge off a bridge near his hometown of Lisieux, Normandy, Otto mails handwritten letters to every classmate who has ever done him wrong. But when his morbid plans go awry, he must quickly improvise lest he face the ridicule of yet another embarrassing failure. Otto hides out in an abandoned building, eating scraps while following the tragic news coverage of his demise, until he is discovered by another lonely soul, Léna (Jane Beever). Together the two will find that growing up maybe doesn’t have to be a drag if you’ve got a friend and possibly more. While French film royalty Françoise Lebrun narrates the film like a timeless fairy tale, Machado-Graner and first-time actor Beever expertly capture teen malaise and mischief while pontificating existential truths with ease. With co-writer Marie-Stéphane Imbert, Félix de Givry crafts a grainy, modern twist on the tween runaway love story found in beloved classics like Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom and the rebellious attitude of Truffaut’s The 400 Blows.
Cast: Milo Machado-Graner, Jane Beever, Françoise Lebrun, Maïa Sandoz
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