Particle.news
Download on the App Store

François Ozon Premieres Camus’s The Stranger at Venice With a Colonial Reckoning

Ozon centers France’s colonial memory through archival images with a black-and-white aesthetic.

Overview

  • Screening in competition at Venice 82, the film presents Ozon’s personal re-reading of Camus’s novel.
  • Ozon foregrounds the colonial context, emphasizing Meursault’s line about killing an Arab and France’s longstanding amnesia about Algeria.
  • The production uses black-and-white photography, a decision born from budget considerations that evolved into a stylistic choice.
  • Unable to shoot in Algeria, the team reconstructed Algiers in Tangier to realize the period setting.
  • Benjamin Voisin leads as Meursault with an immersive on-set approach, and Italian distribution is reported by BIM and Lucky Red.