Two years ago, the French director took part in the Cannes festival with her medium-length film J'ai vu le Visage du Diable (I Saw the Devil's Face), the story of a young Polish woman convinced she is possessed by the Evil One - subsequently awarded the Prix Jean Vigo 2023. For this latest edition of the Quinzaine des Cinéastes, Julia Kowalski takes the story a step further with Que ma Volonté soit Faite, her new feature film which takes up the same themes but transposes the facts to the French diagonal du vide.
A horror film set on a farm- that's something to be curious about. Nawojka(Maria Wróbel) lives with her father and brothers, pious Polish immigrants, on the family farm. The young woman hides a terrible secret: a monstrous power she believes she inherited from her late mother, and which awakens whenever she feels desire, beyond her control.
This provides the film with its first striking scenes: as a prelude, the mother at the stake, considered a witch, followed by sequences of supernatural manifestations on cattle.
This boorish, patriarchal everyday life, not so far removed from Robert Eggers' The VVitch, is complemented by spirited, lively, almost punkish direction, giving Que ma Volonté soit Faite a most singular double-ambiance, at once very raw (the setting is cold, fluids are plentiful) and very artistic (the film is shot on film), never far removed from the genre film of the 70s (assumed zooms, sought-after grain).
The return to the village of Sandra(Roxane Mesquida), a young woman guilty, without trial, of being too free, will arouse the desire of the local men. Halfway between a witch hunt and straw dogs, monstrosity doesn't hide where you think. Men's bodies, beasts' bodies, all at once, the two young women will have to apprehend together the desire of others and their own, in a great feminist gesture.
Que ma volonté soit faite will be unveiled at the Cannes Film Festival 2025. The release date in French cinemas is not yet known.
Synopsis: Young Nawojka, who lives with her father and brothers on the family farm, hides a terrible secret: a monstrous power, which she believes she inherited from her late mother, awakens whenever she feels desire. When Sandra, a free-spirited and sultry local woman, returns to the village, Nawojka is fascinated and her powers manifest themselves beyond her control.
Cannes Festival 2025: The selection of the Directors' Fortnight
Now it's the turn of the Quinzaine des Cinéastes to unveil its selection, which will be screened from May 14 to 24 during the Cannes Film Festival 2025: 28 singular films that resist the dominant ideology, for the 57th edition of this independent film event. [Read more]
Cannes Festival 2025: The selection of the Directors' Fortnight
