EXCLUSIVE: French actress and director Nicole Garcia has shared details of her upcoming film Milo reuniting her with Oscar-winning star Marion Cotillard, as Studiocanal kicks off sales on the title at the EFM.
La Vie en Rose actress Cotillard stars as a woman who arrives alone in a quiet provincial town in France’s Drome region and takes a job at a local café.
“She’s a stranger and there’s a sense of mystery around her. A bit like a character who rides into town in a Western, although it’s usually a man and not a woman,” says Garcia. “Across the course of the film, the woman’s violent political activist past and subsequent jail time are slowly revealed, alongside her motive for moving to the town.
“She’s still relatively young and there’s the possibility of a second act to her life, but the question is how does one live and rebuild after such a devastating past,” adds the director.
There’s also a sense that the woman no longer recognizes the 20-year-old woman who went down a violent path.
“She’s on parole and there’s a scene, where a judge asks her, ‘What were your thoughts on your conviction?’ And she replies, ‘Do you remember being 20?’,’ says Garcia.
The original screenplay was co-written by Garcia with longtime collaborator Jacques Fieschi (La Californie, Lost Illusions) as well as Catherine Corsini’s writer Laurette Polmanss (The Divide) and Olivier Demangel, who won a Bafta for Class Act. Alain Attal produces under his Trésor Films banner.
Cotillard and Garcia last worked on the latter’s penultimate film From the Land of the Moon. The romantic drama, which world premiered in Competition in Cannes in 2016, revolved around a woman torn between a man she married for convenience after WW2 and a veteran soldier, she falls passionately in love while convalescing at a spa.
“The new role is diametrically opposed to the role of From the Land of the Moon. There was an emotional romanticism in that film, while here, on the contrary, it’s a much quieter role, contained, and deeply felt.
“There’s a silence filled with emotions and confessions that are difficult to express. You can sense her character has grown accustomed to the silence but is also grappling with it. It’s a real balancing act and it takes a great actress to pull that off.”
Cotillard is joined in the cast by rising talent Théodore Pellerin, who won the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award for his performance as a young man diagnosed with throat cancer in Pauline Loquès debut film Nino, which debuted in Cannes Critics’ Week last year.
The cast also features Laure Calamy (Call My Agent!) and Artus, star of the 2025 breakout comedy-drama A Little Something Extra.
“I actually didn’t see A Little Something Extra until after casting him,” reveals Garcia, noting it was rather Artus’ performance in 2024 Cannes Critics’ Week selection Block Pass which alerted her to his talent. “I found it extraordinarily good. He plays the café owner in the film.”
Garcia is herself more often in front of the camera rather than behind it, with close to 100 film and TV performances to her name, and recent credits including Isabelle Carré’s Les Rêveurs, Christopher Honoré’s Marcello Mio and Lupin.
“I love to act in film and theatre. It’s almost a physical need but I see acting and directing as very different things, requiring different energies,” she says. “I never been able to act in my own films, even if it’s acting that helps me find the dynamics of directing.”
Garcia also reveals that she is not a big believer in intensive rehearsals before heading to the set.
“I do a lot of preparation on the costumes, they are important for me but I don’t really like talking to the actors too much before filming, and while rehearsals are essential for theatre, in film, what happens on set is all the more powerful if you leave room for surprise.”
Milo is currently in post-production and expected to premiere at major festival this year.
