In his debut film The Kingdom, premiering at Un Certain Regard at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, Julien Colonna poignantly explores a teenager’s turbulent summer and evolving relationship with her father against the backdrop of 1990s Corsican mob wars.
It is quite impressive for a debut director Julien Colonna to tell a story of a teenager turmoil and her relationship with her father in his film The Kingdom (Le Royaume), which premiered at Un Certain Regard, as part of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.
The story follows a young teenager looking at spending summer in Corsica set in the 1990’s with her friends and cousins at the beach, but circumstances lead her to follow a different path and to spend as much of time with her father as he lays low while an underworld war erupts.
For Julien, this film is very special and close to his heart. For the first time he thought of this story line was when his wife told him that he was going to be a father; that was six years ago.
“I wondered about the child I would have, about the father I would try to be, and of course, I also remembered the child I was, and the parents I had. And at this point, a kind of vivid childhood memory emerged, and I was maybe like 10 or 12 years old, and I was with my father and some friends, some of his friends, in a kind of a makeshift camp, in a very wild nature of the Corsican shore; nobody around, and we fished, we dreamed, and we slept on those floors. It was the wildlife. And I realized a few years later that this moment was a special matter for my father, and I had the idea of The Kingdom, depicting a father-daughter relationship, who are on the run, try to escape, and try to understand and love each other during this paroxysmic time.”
Although the father-daughter relationship is important, Julien sets it against the backdrop of a mob story, which adds to the tension and intrigue. He tries to depict a father-daughter relationship that strives to survive in a context where everything else is dying. This relationship serves as a pretext for Julien to speak about this emotional bond while also addressing the dramatic situation in Corsica during that time, which persists even today. The 90s in Corsica were a pivotal period that shaped the economic, sociological, and political future. It marked the beginning of a nationalist war, nationalist clan wars, and the emergence of new underground clans. History seemed to perpetually renew itself, a reality Julien experienced as a child. Everything aligned to reflect the 90s period accurately.
Julien’s use of a teenager to tell the story brings into perspective how she sees the adult world. He creates a character who is a sentinel child, both mature and wounded, capable of hunting and fishing, and very sober. “Of course, it’s a process and a path from childhood to adulthood, but in a context that I wanted to show differently from the often-fantasized mob and underground world. I wanted to portray this context and the mob machinery in its inevitable extension.”
Julien believes the film’s significant use of silence is effective because the main character is silent for much of the film. For him, off-camera sounds and overall sound design were crucial. The presence of men, rumors, and a constant rumble had to be omnipresent. One of the script’s challenges was depicting the main character’s non-action.
Julien describes the first 45 minutes as quite long for a drama and a narrative process, but essential. “When we show violence, for example, it happens quite late in the film, and it had to be very short and sharp because that’s how violence is most of the time,” he adds.
Julien feels that, like the main character, “what we try to do is observe in the most precise way how things are and how things could be, avoiding romanticizing them. In this film, I wanted to depict things as they are, showing these lives and the consequences of these marginal existences.”
For example, he focuses on the closest people to the clan—the children, the parents, the brothers and sisters—portraying them not as monsters or glamorous figures but as grounded individuals living relatively normal lives. “It was important for me to show the tragedy of these destinies and the choices made at a young age that they must stick to. There’s no escape, no way out. When you choose this path, it’s for life. This path is paved only with drama and solitude,” said Julien.
He also mentioned that casting was a long process with two distinct challenges for Lesia and Pierre-Paul. Lesia had to be fascinating without speaking. “We couldn’t rely on dialogue because she is very silent. She had to be magnetic from the start, captivating us with her silence and listening.”
It took him three months and several hundred auditions to cast the roles. Interestingly, both the father and daughter are newcomers who had never set foot on a film set before.
“I started with non-actors for the main cast, including the daughter and father, and then for the clan. It was clear that I needed to work exclusively with Corsican people to achieve authenticity, which was not easy. It’s easier to cast a big star and pretend they are Corsican to finance the film than to cast unknown people,” he added.
“I needed to engage in what we call in France ‘wild casting,’ which involves casting unknown and non-professional actors. If the two leads were non-actors, I decided to go all the way. It was exciting to see their naturalness. They don’t pretend; they just are. On set, they were a bit stressed but also full of energy and ready for the moment. It was amazing, and I would do it again for sure,” Julien added with a smile. “As a filmmaker, it’s refreshing to work with people who are figuring things out just as you are. Their excitement is contagious.”
Choosing to shoot near and around his hometown was a decision Julien feels was the best way to depict Corsica in the 90s. “Not much has changed, and we shot the film mostly within 5 km of my hometown, making it quite intimate. The 90s are reflected everywhere, so it was quite easy. We did a good location scout.” Julien concluded.
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