Ava

Léa Mysius : 2017

13-year-old Ava is spending the summer on the Atlantic coast when she learns that she will lose her sight earlier than predicted. Her mother decides to behave as though nothing has changed so that they can spend the loveliest summer of their lives. Ava confronts the problem in her own way. She steals a large black dog belonging to a young man on the run. "Your field of vision is going to get smaller, you'll lose your night vision, and soon you'll lose your sight." The analysis of the ophthalmologist is final and cruel for Ava who is on holiday for 15 days by the sea with her mother Maud and sister, baby Inès. Caught in this spider's web, this black circle relentlessly closing in on her, the teenager's feelings and deepest desires, secret and violent, come racing to the surface in a diary she writes ("there are children playing in the garden. I want them to drown and for them to never be spoken of again") along with an attraction to a mysterious and laconic gypsy who lives in a cave under a blockhaus further along the beach where Ava goes sand yachting. Stealing the boy's black dog to get used to life as a blind person, the teenager pushes the boundaries of a life that up until then had been very sensible. Léa Mysius's feature debut was winner of the SACD Award when it premiered in competition at the Semaine de la Critique at Festival de Cannes 2017.