Making of: dir Cédric Kahn (2023)

Cinema has always been very interested in itself. In Cédric Kahn’s Making of we are introduced to a movie, a story about workers fighting to protect their factory from being relocated. And we meet a variety of characters involved in it – there is the director (Denis Podalydes) who can’t seem to get everything into place, the producer (Emmanuelle Bercot) who wants to rewrite the ending and cut the budget, the veteran lead actor (Jonathan Cohen) who is a diva on set,and the budding director (Stefan Crepon) who has been commissioned to shoot a behind-the-scenes ‘making of’ documentary.

The result makes for a satisfyingly complex fly-on-the-wall comedy, with a large ensemble cast of French actors having fun with the long list of roles. There’s a nod to social topics too; the issues discussed in the film-within-a-film – underpaid workers, torn labourers, possibilities of losing work – all mirror the stressed film crew trying to just finish this production. And it’s timely, given the strikes that have been going on in Hollywood recently …

In French with English subtitles. AF members pay AED 25, the rest of us pay AED 35.