Weekend films

'And the children after them', a symbolic coming-of-age story

New releases include the French film by Zoran and Ludovic Boukherma and the Romanian feature 'Three Kilometres to the End of the World'

by Andrea Chimento

15 May 2026

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Key points

Rich soundtrack
Three kilometres to the end of the world

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

A good French coming-of-age is among the weekend's stars in theatres: it is 'And the Children After Them', a film presented in competition at the 2024 Venice Film Festival.

Based on Nicolas Mathieu's novel "Leurs enfants après eux", this feature film opens during the summer of 1992, when 14-year-old Anthony and his cousin pass the time by the lake with two girls. For Anthony this will be an encounter with his first love, a moment that will mark him for several years. In addition to this new and deep feeling, however, another very different one arises: hatred for a boy called Hacine, a young rebel from the neighbourhood.

Directed by Zoran and Ludovic Boukherma, twin brothers born in Marmande in 1992, this film recounts four crucial summers in the lives of the characters (and, perhaps, of France in general) coming to an end during the 1998 World Cup.

In this coming-of-age story, the various years thus become decisive steps towards maturity, both for the character of Anthony, his beloved Steph and the 'enemy' Hacine.

Although it is a film about youth, there is also considerable attention in the writing of the adult characters - Anthony's father, first and foremost - capable of being credible and necessary to develop a discourse that also reasons politically about France at the time.

“E i figli dopo di loro“e gli altri film della settimana
Photogallery4 foto

Rich soundtrack

Accompanied by a rich soundtrack that reintroduces us to several great songs from that decade, 'And the Children After Them' is a film that, despite its 144-minute running time, is attentively followed from start to finish, endowed with good pace and only suffering from a couple of uninspiring sequences within a well-conceived overall design.

Some of the insights and reflections are perhaps not so original, but the outcome is nonetheless effective and capable of making the audience empathise with the events of the characters on stage.

The cast has familiar faces - from Ludivine Segnier to Gilles Lelouche - but the one who stands out is Paul Kircher as Anthony: the young actor confirms himself as one of the most interesting faces in the new French cinema after having already demonstrated his talent in Christophe Honoré's 'Winter Boy' and Thomas Cailley's 'Animal Kingdom'.

Three kilometres to the end of the world

New releases include 'Three Kilometres to the End of the World' by Emanuel Parvu, a Romanian director in his third feature film.

At the centre of the story is Adi, a seventeen-year-old boy spending the summer in a village on the Danube delta. One evening he is brutally attacked and beaten up: the motive is homophobic and an investigation begins to find out who the culprits are.

Parvu recounts a small space to talk about something very large: the metaphor soon reaches universal reflections, relating to the hypocrisy of a society that is slowly unmasked in the course of the narrative.

The style is quite scholastic, but the film is incisive and well-written, especially thanks to a series of punchy dialogues that also demonstrate the fair strength of a carefully crafted script.

There are no great flashes, but the film shakes and interests until the end, confirming the excellent state of Romanian production, one of the most present at festivals in recent years and one of the most awarded films ever.