The young Nika has moved along with her partner Vlad to Corsica, from where Vlad along with other French legionnaires is deployed on a military operation into western Africa. In her new home, Nika makes the acquaintance of Céline, whose husband leads Vlad’s unit and whose family life is similarly disrupted by her husband’s several-month absences. While a life-and-death drama plays out on the sea, the film also takes note of a more subtle family drama about dreams and expectations that are slowly but just as dangerously developing in the legionnaires’ homes.

Rachel Lang

This French director has drawn attention before with the final work from her studies, the short For You I Will Fight (2011) – an award-winner in Locarno. Her other shorts were similarly successful, as was her feature-length debut Baden Baden (2016), which was accepted for the Berlinale. Her drama Our Men was based upon her own experience serving in the French army, and it premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight section at Cannes.