Director

Gustave Kervern, Benoît Delepine

France | 2020 | 110 min | French, English

• Producer Sylvie Pialat, Benoît Quainon, Benoît Delépine, Gustave Kervern
• Production Company Les Films du Worso, No Money Productions
• Screenplay Gustave Kervern, Benoît Delepine
• Cinematography Hugues Poulain
• Editing Stéphane Guillot Elmadjian
• Sound Régis Boussin
• Cast Blanche Gardin, Denis Podalydes, Vincent Lacoste, Michel Houellebecq, Benoit Poelvoorde, Corinne Masiero
• Contacts

  Wild Bunch International

  edevos@wildbunch.eu

About the Film

As skeptics of systematic stupidity, painters of contemporary techno-mental misery, apostles of a vigorous anarcho-surrealism, Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kerven set off to do battle with artificial intelligence in their new film Delete History.

In a provincial suburb, three neighbours are overtaken by new technologies and social media. There is Marie, divorced and depressed, who could be about to lose the respect of her son because of a sex tape; Bertrand, a hard-pressed locksmith, naïve prey to the mirages of the Net, whose daughter is the victim of online bullying; and Christine, an Uber driver and ex-addict to series whose ratings are refusing to take off. With the help of small-time crooks, they resolve to fight the mighty windmills of contemporary living—the Big Tech companies. Maybe their battle is doomed from the outset, but you never know… Eventually, the three friends manage to track down a wild-eyed hacker who calls himself 'God.' Even he claims to have no dominion over ‘the Cloud’—the new artificial intelligence that man has created to outsmart himself. Taking matters into their own hands, the trio plans to divide and conquer the digital world.

In addition to the film’s obvious digital targets, Delete History is a dramedy that entwines the anxieties of life in the digital world with those of the disgruntled French working class, whose frustrations came to a boil with the country’s recent economic protests.

Delete History is both a ‘yellow vest’ period piece and a funny, scornful review of the modern age. Some of the absurd or near-absurd situations are guaranteed to make audiences laugh; their laughter, however, always backfires.

With a soundtrack of English-language songs by outsider (analog) musician Daniel Johnston—which suits the film’s loose form—and the poorly polished grain of its super-16 film, its deliberately twisted angles, and its provocative situations, the film is bound to make you laugh and think. It received the Golden Bear at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival.

Nicole Guillemet