– CANNES 2026: Following a young girl searching for the father she has never known, Rudi Rosenberg delivers a stripped-back and deeply moving melodrama
Hafsia Herzi and Nour Salam in Words of Love
“I know he loves me. I wrote him a letter: it’s me, Abi, your daughter. I know you want to meet me. I’m not angry with you. You mustn’t be afraid of my mother, we’re not going to ask you for money.” Much like these words from a seven-year-old girl sharing her naïve faith with her playground friends, Rudi Rosenberg’s second feature, Words of Love, unveiled in the Un Certain Regard section of the 79th Cannes Film Festival, unfolds through a story that is simple, direct and deeply affecting. It is an empathetic and methodical exploration of the emotions within a small family unit missing one crucial piece, which the French filmmaker — winner of the New Directors award in San Sebastián in 2015 with The New Kid — skilfully develops across two time periods separated by seven years.
“His daughter wanted to see him. She doesn’t know him, she’s never even seen him.” It is 1995, in the Paris suburbs, and Erica’s attempt to bring Abigail together with her biological father, Antoine, ends with a caretaker brusquely shutting a door and the faint glimpse of a silhouette at a window. But the little girl clings to her dream just as tightly as she clings to the photograph of her father, checking the letterbox every day in the hope of receiving a reply to the letter she has sent him, despite her mother’s explanations and warnings (“he didn’t want children”, “this is going to end badly”, “sometimes it’s better not to have a father”). Erica (magnificently played by Hafsia Herzi), who also has a younger son, Yoni, from another man she has separated from, feels helpless in the face of her daughter’s sorrow; yet, she eventually agrees to make another unannounced visit. But Antoine has moved away without leaving an address, and Abi suffers a devastating blow when she discovers that her father has another family — and another daughter. The photograph is torn up, and after a seven-year ellipsis, we are reunited with the family trio: Yoni (Mateo Danila), now 12 years old, and Abi (the revelation Nour Salam), who is still far from having let go of her quest for a father, which has now turned into an obsession…
Written by the filmmaker himself, the screenplay stays focused on the essentials, following an investigative thread punctuated by small twists. Along the way, it explores themes of abandonment, the guilt-ridden helplessness of a mother confronted with her children’s suffering and trying to ease it — never quite knowing how, constantly wavering between helping and protecting — and, more broadly, what truly defines family bonds. The result is an intimate and deeply moving film — like a secret box hidden beneath a bed — about a girl consumed by absence and a courageous mother raising her children alone. A classic melodrama centred on its main characters, deliberately modest yet highly effective, shot in a realism beautifully captured by cinematographer Éric Dumont.
Words of Love was produced by Chi-Fou-Mi Productions and co-produced by Chapter 2 and by TF1 Productions. StudioCanal handles international sales.
(Translated from French)
