A Place to Heal

Cédric Kahn has been working steadily in French cinema since the early 1990s, moving between true-crime reconstruction, chamber drama and courtroom procedural. The Goldman Case (2023) opened Directors' Fortnight at Cannes and brought him his widest audience in years. 15/18, released internationally as A Place to Heal, is his return to the Venice main competition, where the newcomer Malou Khebizi won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for best emerging performer.

The film is set almost entirely inside an adolescent psychiatric ward, and takes its title from the age bracket the unit admits. Lucia arrives under police escort to a place she has been before, rejoining a group of teenagers whose conditions and backgrounds have almost nothing in common. Kahn casts newcomers alongside established players: Zoé Monpart makes her debut opposite Khebizi, Jennifer Decker comes from the Comédie-Française, and Kahn himself takes the role of one of the doctors. Patrick Ghiringhelli photographs the ward in flat institutional daylight, and the film keeps to the unit's own unsteady rhythm of arrivals and departures.

Reception from Venice was warm and, unusually for a film on this subject, largely free of condescension. Variety called it rawly sensitive and reached for a comparison with Laurent Cantet, whose The Class remains the reference point for the French ensemble film set inside a public institution. The Guardian judged it heartfelt and high-minded. Ad Vitam releases it in French cinemas in November 2026.