Leave One Day: The First Raw Gem of the French Film Festival 2026

Leave One Day. Partir un jour.

A film of nostalgia, which opened the Cannes Film Festival last year. In the toilets of Palace Moore Park, in Sydney, after the screening, discussions were running wild about what rating this film should get. Mine would be 8.5 out of 10, provoking a wave of incomprehension while washing hands above the sink.

My cinematic tastes are more than questionable, I know. My all-time favorite film is The Big Blue — that says it all. I loved Visconti's The Leopard, but I prefer Beating Hearts (L'Amour ouf); what can I do. I loved It's Only the End of the World, with the late Gaspard Ulliel, but I place Partir un jour on the same level. The nostalgia here is about wanting to relive an idyll that never existed in familiar places — those of childhood, adolescence; a story that, in fact, will never exist since it belongs to the past. Stealing a kiss from the past on a neighborhood skating rink is romance par excellence, and since I'm a romantic, I loved Partir un jour.

I'm told, above the sink, that Juliette Armanet deliberately sang off-key for the needs of the film. To me, she sings in tune, in unison with the characters — all imperfect — like the life we lead. And then this film tells the classic case of a "star" returning to her native village, to an environment now disowned, sometimes despised. Juliette Armanet, having become a queen of cuisine in Paris, returns to her father's roadside diner after his third heart attack.

Returning as a hero after leaving, after earning one or two stars. The return is open to all, as is the departure. Perhaps that's where everything plays out: between those who stay and those who leave. It's harder to become a class defector when you don't leave... And perhaps it's the mirror this film holds up — to those who left as well as those who didn't — that creates such a divide in the ratings people give it. I stand by my 8.5 out of 10. The mirror reminds me of the modesty of my native environment, from which I left, but to which I return with undiminished pleasure whenever I can. The best of both worlds: peace with one's past and faith in the future, enriched by everything that made us and everything that awaits us.

Leave One Day. Partir un jour.

A must-see when the Alliance Française French Film Festival opens its doors, from March 3rd, at the State Theatre. Tickets for the red carpet event go on sale tomorrow, Friday.