Hearts on Fire
Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2026
March 5 - 15
In his feature debut, Aurélien Peyre brings acute sensitivity and wisdom to an affecting story of young love in the modern age, with Summer of 85 star Félix Lefebvre and talented newcomer Anja Verderosa—both César Award nominees for Best Newcomer—in an opposites-attract relationship.
Nominated for three César Awards, including Best First Film, Female Newcomer (Anja Verderosa), and Male Newcomer (Félix Lefebvre)
Returning to his childhood home on a charming island off the northeast coast of France, 19-year-old Hugo (Félix Lefebvre, star of Rendez-Vous 2021 selection Summer of 85) is excited to spend the summer with his new girlfriend, a stunning and sweetly extroverted beautician nicknamed Queen (newcomer Anja Verderosa). But once she arrives, Hugo’s shy sensibility and perennial insecurities start to clash with her brash energy, under the mocking eyes of his snobbish, smugly tight-knit social circle. In his feature debut, Aurélien Peyre depicts an opposites-attract relationship in all its shades, from initial mutual infatuation to reckoning with grown-up questions of compatibility, bringing acute sensitivity and wisdom to an affecting story of young love in the modern age.
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