Look Again. Jan 19 – 29, 2012 Park City, Utah

The opening night film of the 2011 Cannes International Critics’ Week and France’s official 2011 Academy Award entry, Declaration of War is, above all, a love story.

After meeting at a party, Romeo and Juliette (they can’t believe it, either) fall in love, move in together, and have a child, Adam. The young couple, wearily navigating early parenthood, begin to suspect that Adam has a medical problem, a fear that’s confirmed when doctors discover a brain tumor. Gathering family and friends, they declare war on his illness, and their storybook romance plunges into an unrelenting world of hospitals, exhaustion, and uncertainty.

More heart than heartbreak, Valérie Donzelli’s second feature transforms the “disease drama” into an exuberant, fiercely original experience. With multiple narrators, cinematic flair, free-spirited editing, and eclectic music, Donzelli’s energetic style invokes la nouvelle vague but is also purely expressive—of laughter and tears, hope and fear, joy and anger. Written by Donzelli and Jérémie Elkaïm (based on their real-life experience), Declaration of War is a beautiful portrait of love and survival.
- J.N.

Lauren Schwartz
lmschwartz@ifcfilms.com
Sundance Selects
Declaration of War
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Valérie Donzelli is an actress and director from Épinal, France. Her films include the short Madeleine et le facteur (Madeleine and the Postman) (2010), which screened at the Paris Film Festival, and La reine des pommes (The Queen of Hearts) (2009), which won awards at the Athens and Locarno film festivals. Donzelli’s latest film, Declaration of War (La guerre est déclarée), was selected as the opening night film at Critics' Week in Cannes and was France's selection for the best foreign language film at the 2011 Academy Awards.