“A first name is a gift, a choice, a message that can be questioned, interpreted, and reinvented throughout one's life.”
Nurith Aviv asked thirteen of her friends to tell their stories through their first names. Although they express themselves in French, their first names often come from elsewhere, blending their personal histories with broader historical events, notably colonization, the Holocaust, communism, May 1968, the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, and the Islamic Revolution.
Although these stories are unique and very different from one another, they resonate with each other, creating unexpected connections.
GIVEN NAMES
un film de Nurith Aviv - Littérature / Cinéma“A first name is a gift, a choice, a message that can be questioned, interpreted, and reinvented throughout one's life.”
Nurith Aviv asked thirteen of her friends to tell their stories through their first names. Although they express themselves in French, their first names often come from elsewhere, blending their personal histories with broader historical events, notably colonization, the Holocaust, communism, May 1968, the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, and the Islamic Revolution.
Although these stories are unique and very different from one another, they resonate with each other, creating unexpected connections.
At the beginning of one's life, there is a first name. A first name that is often chosen by one's father or mother, sometimes by both, sometimes by a relative or according to tradition. Those who receive this first name can adopt it or reinvent it according to their own intimate needs. Nurith Aviv went to meet twenty-two of her friends, following the itinerary of an alphabet book. She asked each of them to tell their story through their first name. As a prelude to a future installation, her feature film Prénoms invites us to listen to thirteen of them. “We carry a name, and it carries us,” says one of them. This central chiasmus holds the promise of unexpected relationships and unhoped-for echoes that set the film in motion. Combining the French language with the diverse origins of the first names, this is not a series of monologues but a fascinating polyphonic echo.
Data sheet
- Directed by
- Nurith Aviv
- Year
- 2026
- Genre
- Littérature / Cinéma
- With
- Chowra Makaremi, Edouard Rosenblatt, Gulya Mirzoeva Hind Meddeb, Judith Guy, Marc-Alain Ouaknin, Nathalie Bély, Rym Bouhedda, Sarah Lawan Gana, Tewfik Allal Yue Zhuo & Zeynep Jouvenaux
- Editing
- Hippolyte Saura & Nurith Aviv
- Photography
- Nurith Aviv
- Sound
- Antoine Ruanlt & Yul Elia Berlowitz Tamir
Antoine Ruanlt & Yul Elia Berlowitz Tamir - Producer
- Les Films d’Ici - Serge Lalou & Sophie Cabon
- Length
- 82'
- Special mention
- Sélectionné à la BERLINALE Forum 2026
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