Pierre Romans: Last News

Jessica Kiang There are no more potential-killing words of creative advice than “write what you know.” Certainly it’s a shame that when donning her screenwriter chapeau, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi — a fine actress and a director with a deft, light touch, especially with breezy character comedy — seems to have taken them so to heart. Once again she goes back to the autobiographical well for her latest directorial trifle, “Forever Young,” which she co-writes alongside Agnès De Sacy and regular collaborator Noémie Lvovsky.Once again the result is set in a rarefied world of which Bruni Tedeschi has intimate knowledge: this time the 1980s acting school run by the late French theater, opera and film director Patrice Chéreau.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentWhen Italian-French actress and director Valeria Bruni Tedeschi was in her twenties she had the formative experience of attending the prestigious acting school at the Théâtre des Amandiers in Nanterre, France, led by late great auteur Patrice Chéreau. Her fifth directorial effort, “Forever Young,” which is in competition in Cannes, is a tribute to that time and, ultimately, to any young person’s passion for the theatre. Tedeschi spoke to Variety in Cannes about how she mixed remembrances and re-invention to make this film.