Winner > Best Feature Documentary
Synopsis
Si Loin de l’Enfer is a film resulting from the meeting with two descendants of resistance fighters deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, two women from the Pays-Haut in France, on the Belgian and Luxembourg borders.
A biographical journey, between past and present, between lives with such different fates. Crystèle Renaudin, whose grandmother returned from the death camp, punctuates the film with music, and her unwavering passion, while Pierre Zani testifies about his mother for the first time in front of a camera.
A journey built over three years, where smiles and lightness rub shoulders with terror and dread, where life comes up against the inconceivable.
A journey where ghosts of the past arise, voices urging us to live.
Director > Maxime Simone
Writer > Maxime Simone
Producer > Maxime Simone
Director Biography – MAXIME SIMONE
I come from a working-class region in France, with its abandoned factories and its lost dreams. I learned to make films without going to a film school. I started in 2017 with a first short film, and then a first documentary released in 2020, about steelworkers.
So Far From is my first feature-length documentary, and has been selected for several festivals around the world.
In 2022, I started a new documentary project, called Outsiders, about a small women’s football team.
