Twin brothers Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma left their village in southwest France for Paris just over a decade ago to study film at the Luc Besson-spearheaded L’École de la Cité.
The duo is now settled in the French capital, but they still turn for inspiration to their working-class upbringing in so-called “Peripheral France”, a term coined in the 2010s to describe disadvantaged communities left behind by globalisation.
Their fourth feature And Their Children After Them – which world premieres in competition in Venice this weekend – taps into this world in the 1990s.
Adapted from Nicolas Mathieu’s 2018 novel of the same name, the drama revolves around three youngsters growing up in a former steel town in north-eastern France.
Anthony (Paul Kircher,) and Hacine (Sayyid El Alami), are the sons of two ex-steel workers, and Steph (Angelina Woreth), a girl from a comfortable middle-class background.
Over the course of four summers from 1992 to1998 their destinies intertwine to give a portrait of a lost post-industrial generation, whose dreams of a different destiny from that of their parents will likely not come to pass.
The Boukherma brothers were introduced to the novel by actor and director Gilles Lellouche, who enlisted their help to adapt it into a TV series.
“We really liked it for a number of reasons, but in particular because it resonated with our own adolescence,” says Zoran Boukherma.
Even though they were born in the same year as the novel’s opening, they suggest the fact they belong to one of the last generations to have grown up without 24-7 internet and smartphones means they have more in common with Anthony, Hacine and Steph, than generations that came after them.
“We belong to a generation that knew communication between young people without the internet, which is something that differentiates us from today’s generation,” says Ludovic Boukherma.
The story also touches on how the post-industrial social disintegration of the 1990s laid the foundations for the social tensions and rise of the far-right witnessed in today’s France.
“The boys’ fathers Patrick and Malek were friends through their work at the steel mill. Now their children don’t work there, and a sort of artificial divide has grown up between the children of immigrants and children of French origin, which is in essence at the heart of conflict between Anthony and Hacine,” says Zoran Boukherma.
Lellouche had to shelve the TV adaptation after he got busy with other projects, notably Cannes 2024 title Beating Hearts.
The brothers then approached producers Hugo Sélignac and Alain Attal, who optioned the rights for Lellouche, asking if they would allow them to adapt the novel to the big screen instead.
“We felt it made more sense as a feature film,” says Zoran Boukherma.
Conversations with writer Mathieu revealed they had a shared love of New Hollywood and 1970s American cinema in general as well as Bruce Springsteen, influences that are woven into the fabric of the film.
“I think Nicholas Mathieu had The Deer Hunter in mind” says Ludovic Boukherma, referring to the Michael Cimino’s 1978 classic about friends from a small steel town in Pennsylvania whose lives are changed forever by the Vietnam War… That was why we wanted the big screen and cinemascope, because we had the blast furnaces of The Deer Hunter in our heads.”
He also notes that the opening sequence, in which Anthony steals a canoe with his cousin, is taken directly from a scene Jeff Nichols’ 2013 film Mud and featured in the original novel.
Mathieu’s novel contains a wider story arc, but the Boukhermas decided to focus on the events of the four summers in and around the town.
“The book is about social determination, and the idea that these characters will remain in the same place, like their parents before them, and potentially follow their path. We decided to confine the film to the town too and also focus on the timeframes of the summer,” says Zoran Boukherma.
The brothers also wanted to make a film that would chime with a larger public, peppering it with references to pop culture of the time, from the music to video games.
“We want the film to talk to the people it’s about as well as our parents and the people we grew up. We were aiming to make a film that offers big emotions like an American film, even if the story is very French a nd anchored in the world of peripheral France,” he says.
“I think this is something we took away from the book. It’s a Goncourt prize-winning social novel but at the same time there is something very generous in the way that Nicolas writes and makes the story accessible.
Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma’s stars have been rising ever since they won Deauville’s Prix d’Ornano-Valenti prize honoring a first feature for the 2016 Willy 1er, directed with Marielle Gautier and Hugo P. Thomas.
The comedy-drama followed a man in his 50s who leaves his parents’ home to live on his own for the first time in his life following the death of his twin.
They followed Willy 1er with the well-received horror comedies Teddy (2020), about a directionless young man who turns into a werewolf, and The Year of the Shark (2022).
And Their Children After Them feels like a step change for the brothers after their forays into genre, but they says that all of their films to date have had a social edge.
“That’s always been important for us. Teddy is a werewolf film but it’s also a social film… there are always social issues in the backdrop to our films,” says Zoran Boukherma.
With And Their Children After Them due for release by via Warner Bros. in France on December 4, the brothers are currently writing their next film which they say might be in English.
“We can’t say too much right now. It’s at quite an advanced stage, it’s not an adaptation but rather an original story, which is a bit mad, and we might do it in English, it’s a question we’re discussing with the producers at the moment,” says Zoran Boukherma.
“We love the English-language. We grew up with English-language cinema, both British and American and we’ve always felt close to Anglo-Saxon culture in general. It would also be a challenge. With each film we do, we like to push ourselves in a different direction.”
