Rookie Helmer Durga Chew-Bose on TIFF Debut ’Bonjour Tristesse’ and the Special Bond of the Female Characters and Producers

variety.com:

Sharareh Drury Intoxicating ocean views and cascading sunshine at a seaside villa welcome audiences into Durga Chew-Bose‘s feature directorial debut, “Bonjour Tristesse.” The beauty creates a too-good-to-be-true environment — the perfect setting for summer romance, youthful exploration and, also, somehow, something dark and unnerving. “Bonjour Tristesse” premieres Sept.

5 at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, where Chew-Bose is also receiving the TIFF Emerging Talent Award presented by Amazon MGM Studios honor at the Sept.

8 TIFF Gala. Adapted from the controversial 1954 novel of the same name by Françoise Sagan, who was just 18 when she penned it, the film follows a young Cécile (Lily McInerny) and her widowed father Raymond (Claes Bang) spending the summer in the south of France along with his latest partner, Elsa (Nailia Harzoune).

A seemingly perfect holiday is disrupted when Anne ( Chloë Sevigny), an old friend of Cécile’s parents, comes to visit. Chew-Bose’s rendition is only mildly transformed for modern audiences, an intentional decision as well as Babe Nation Films’ Katie Bird Nolan and Lindsay Tapscott, executive producers on the project.