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Les jours heureux

Directed by Chloé Robichaud
Canada, 2023 (fiction, 118 minutes, colour, French)
Also known as "Days of Happiness"

Film Description:
"Emma, a talented conductor and rising star on the Montreal stage, has a complicated relationship with her father and agent Patrick. She must confront her emotions and decide if she wants to succeed in navigating her career and her romantic relationship with Naëlle, a newly separated cellist and mother of a young boy."
-- Item 7 (source)

Film Description:
"Days of Happiness, the latest drama from Montreal-based writer-director Chloé Robichaud, is an emotionally complex, visually assured drama about a young orchestra conductor who finds herself at a crossroads in her life and career. Charismatic, gifted Emma (Sophie Desmarais, who starred in Robichaud's breakout, Sarah Prefers to Run, TIFF '13) is on track to become a major player on the Quebec classical music scene. Audiences are enraptured by her work, but her career is very closely managed by her controlling father, Patrick (Sylvain Marcel), who's also her agent. After years of acquiescing to his demands, Emma is finally in a position to re-evaluate both their professional and personal relationships—and that's when cellist and single mother Naëlle (Nour Belkhiria) enters her life, offering her the chance to experience an entirely different type of family dynamic. Comparisons to Todd Field's Tár are likely inevitable, but this is a very different project. For a start, Robichaud is much more sympathetic to her characters, and far more invested in their mental and emotional well-being. Cinematographer Ariel Méthot and artistic consultant Yannick Nézet-Séguin (music director and principal conductor of Montreal's Orchestre Métropolitain) give the film a visual and aural texture all its own. And Desmarais is uniquely compelling in the role of Emma, who's only just beginning to realize she can have the life she deserves, if she fights for it."
-- Norm Wilner (source)


Film Credits (partial):
Written by: Chloé Robichaud
Produced by: Pierre Even, Paul-E. Audet, Jeannette Garcia, Yanick Savard
Principal Cast: Sophie Desmarais, Sylvain Marcel, Nour Belkhiria, Maude Guérin, Vincent Leclerc, Yves Jacques, Rayan Benmoussa, Katherine Levac
Cinematography: Ariel Méthot
Film Editing: Yvann Thibaudeau
Production Company: Item 7
(sources)

Notes about Les jours heureux

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