Director Erick Zonca – whose The Dreamlife of Angels remains one of the more memorable French art house films of the late 1990s – returns after a 10-year absence with a dark crime thriller with a twist.

When Dany, the Arnault family’s teenage son, vanishes one morning on his way to school, the case is assigned to François Visconti (Vincent Cassel), an alcoholic, world-weary, and disillusioned detective whose personal life is a mess (his wife has left him and his own teenage son is mixed up in drug trafficking). Drunk but still functional, Visconti starts exploring various clues, while getting too close to Dany's distressed mother, Solange (Sandrine Kiberlain). Discounting his colleagues' theories about ISIS recruitment, he soon finds himself on the heels of a neighbor who formerly tutored Dany, Yann Bellaile (Romain Duris), whose close interest in the case appears suspicious.

With a solid mystery at its core, Black Tide is an engrossing film that will keep you on the edge of your seat: what happened to Dany?....

And it features not one, not two, but three standout performances by France’s top actors, all of whom have featured prominently in past SFFF programs: Cassel in Read My Lips – SFFF 2002 & 2016, One Wild Moment – SFFF MiniFest 2015, My King – SFFF 2016 (Cassel is also known from many English-language films including Jason Bourne, Black Swan, Eastern Promises, Ocean’s Twelve and Ocean’s Thirteen), Duris in The Beat That My Heart Skipped – SFFF 2005, Heartbreaker – SFFF 2010, Chinese Puzzle – SFFF 2014, The New Girlfriend – SFFF 2017, and Kiberlain in Number One Fan– SFFF 2017, Nine Month Stretch – SFFF 2014, The Women on the 6th Floor – SFFF 2011.

Shown with VIS-À-VIS by Frédéric Zamochnikoff