Official Selection – International Competition · Montgolfière d’Or · F3C 2024
The Official Jury, comprising Olivier BABINET, Claire DITERZI, Aymerick PILARSKI and Cyrielle RAINGOU, stated: “The film touched us deeply with its extreme sensitivity, moving poetry and incredible maturity. This golden balloon rewards an incredible emerging talent, and we hope that the prize will take her to even greater heights, as we are already looking forward to seeing her next films.”
Synopsis
In Japanese, the term “hanami” denotes the custom of viewing the bloom of cherry blossoms (sakura) in springtime. What mysterious oceanic journey takes it from Japan’s volcanic archipelago to the equally eruptive Cape Verde, where Denise Fernandes quite literally roots her debut feature film? A word, a tree, a land that everyone either seems to have left or wants to leave, and Nana, or more precisely the three ages of Nana from her birth, her feverish early childhood to her seventeenth year. Nana is left behind by her mother, Nia, who went far way to get treated for a strange illness and never returned. Avoiding yet not repressing the coming-of-age story, Hanami offers an unpredictable, ambitious and poetic reflection on the Cape Verde people torn between here and elsewhere, between the pain of exile and insular isolation, a rock between land and sea.
The film is being screened at the Cinéma Jacques Tati in Saint-Nazaire between 9 and 14 July 2026.
Don’t miss the chance to (re)discover this debut film, which was first shown to audiences in Nantes and across France in November 2024.
