Hugo

Robert Zucchini (legendary Éric Rohmer collaborator Fabrice Luchini) is preparing a one-man show about the great French novelist and poet Victor Hugo. Struggling to maintain his footing in a contemporary world that’s seemingly passed him by, Robert starts to thaw as he’s reconnected with his estranged daughter Lisbeth (Marie Narbonne). Director Pascal Bonitzer has two films in this year’s Rendez-Vous, reinventing Georges Simenon’s iconic detective in Maigret and the Dead Lover while paying dual tribute here to a pair of French cultural legends: Hugo, and the director’s late wife, Sophie Fillières, who wrote the screenplay. The actress and writer-director died in 2023; her final work as a filmmaker, This Life of Mine, was a highlight of Rendez-Vous 2025. Here, Bonitzer lovingly realizes her characteristically sly, emotionally complex final script.