Production wraps on Hafsia Herzi's third feature for France's June Films

Hafsia Herzi’s third feature, a coming-of-age story called La Petite Dernière, has wrapped for rising French production outfit June Films.

Newcomer Nadia Melliti stars alongside Return To Seoul’s Park-ji Min with Louis Memmi, Mouna Soualem, and several non-professional actors in an adaptation of Fatima Daas’ novel. It is about the daughter of Algerian immigrants in Paris struggling to reconcile what is expected of her by her family and society and the life she wants for herself. 

Julie Billy and Naomi Denamur of June Films produce with Arte France Cinema and Germany’s Katuh Studio. Ad Vitam will release the film in France in 2025.  

Billy and Denamur are making a name for themselves as producers of films by female directors who have something fresh to say. Launched in 2020, their credits include Emma Benestan’s bull-fighting body horror Animale which closed Cannes’ Critics’ Week 2024 and sold to Film Movement for North America. Like the films being made by Herzi, Benestan’s film portrayed the second-generation immigrant experience in France while exploring themes of female sexuality and identity.

They are now putting together the financing for Expectation, the English-language directorial debut of actress Clémence Poésy, based on Anna Hope’s 2019 novel about female friendship, co-written by Georgia Oakley. Haut et Court and the UK’s Potboiler are co-producing and casting is underway with renowned UK casting director Jina Jay.

The feature slate also includes France-Belgium-Sweden co-production Les Yeux Verts (working title), the next film from Gagarine directors Fanny Liatard and Jeremy Trouilh, which will star Anamaria Vartolomei and is co-written by Amelie and I Lost my Body screenwriter Guillaume Laurent. The film is a children’s survival story told through magical realism and is a co-production between June, Haut et Court, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Belgian production house Les Films du Fleuve, and Sweden’s Hobab Films. 

June is also working with international filmmakers including US directing duo Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw whose credits include the award-winning feature documentary The Truffle Hunters and 2024’s Gaucho Gaucho. They are in pre-production on their next feature documentary will be co-produced by Dweck and Kershaw’s Beautiful Stories Productions. 

On the TV side, June Films produced The Confidante (Une Amie Dévouée) the first French original series for Warner Bros Discovery’s Max. Directed by The Swarm and Acid filmmaker Just Phllippot, The Confidante is about a woman, played by Laure Calamy, who lies to a support group for survivors of the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks about her involvement in the tragedy.

A version of this story originally appeared on KFTV's sister site Screen International