Custody

One of the most astonishing film debuts in recent memory, and winner of Best Director at the Venice Film Festival, Xavier Legrand’s heart-stopping drama charts a family’s struggles with the fallout of divorce, and the resulting arrangements for (and impact on) the two children. Miriam (Léa Drucker) and Antoine (Denis Ménochet) have recently separated. While she’s willing to permit their 17-year-old daughter Josephine (Mathilde Auneveux) to decide living arrangements for herself, Miriam is desperate to keep her youngest, 11-year-old Julien (Thomas Gioria), away from his father. But the magistrate rules in favour of joint-custody, and suddenly the boy is thrown directly into the middle of an escalating parental conflict, where it seems inevitable that sides must be chosen…