and the cinema of others
 

POSTED ON 11.10.2025 

The Lumière film festival is often about encounters, where filmmakers, actors, journalists, audiences and writers come together by virtue of their shared love of cinema and make meaningful connections. 

© Kasper Tuxen - Zentropa productions - Arte France Cinema - MK2 Productions - Komplizen Films - Mer Film Production - Lumen Films
Sentimental Value (2025)

Sean Penn and the cinema of others involves a long story about a modern film buff who helps out whenever he can with all kinds of films. He helped Filipino director Brillante Mendoza distribute his feature film Service (2008) in the United States. He struck up a collaboration with Italian director Paolo Sorrentino, who cast him in one of his most intimate and wonderful roles in This Must Be the Place (2011). In Lyon, Penn will be introducing Manas by Marianna Brennand, a formidable portrait of a modern teenager in an inequality-ridden Brazil. He will also be joining Danish-Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier for an exclusive premiere of Sentimental Value! 

As an actor and director whose films delve into the family and try to comprehend major human turmoil, it is not surprising that Sean Penn is moved by Trier's film, where each character lives their truth with an intensity reminiscent of The Indian Runner (1991), Penn's first film. It is a story about two brothers, one of whom is suffering acutely, just like the heroine of Sentimental Value, who can count on her sister to listen to her.

Regardless from what continent it hails, cinema in Lyon shows that artists and audiences share a connection through works with universal appeal. Sentimental Value is one of them. This story about an ambivalent father (another common theme in Penn’s films!) who returns and finds himself face to face with his daughters, with the semi-conscious desire to share who he is with them -  is eternal. The figure of the father with his qualities and his flaws asks the rhetorical questions: What does it mean to be a father? What do we owe our children? Must we give up our freedom for someone else? These are also questions shared by Penn and Trier's cinema and people's lives. ‘I think it's time for us to sit down and have a real discussion,’ says the father to his daughter in Sentimental Value. Let us listen !

Virginie Apiou

Manas by Marianna Brennand (2025, 1h41)
Lumière Terreaux Mon13 8.30pm

Sentimental Value by Joachim Trier (Affeksjonsverdi, 2025, 2h13)
Pathé Bellecour Sat11 2.45pm (tickets available at Pathé Bellecour)

POSTED ON 11.10.2025