15/18 (A Place To Heal)

Lucia, 17, is brought by the police to the adolescent psychiatric ward in a public hospital, a place she knows all too well. Back inside, she reunites with her friend Eloïse, who is hospitalized long-term, and meets a new group of teenagers, each wrestling with their own struggles. Led by Etienne, the team of doctors treats, listens, and meets with families as they confront the raw realities of their patients’ lives, all while managing an overstretched department. Fragile bonds form between patients and caregivers, creating a delicate balance that offers glimpses of hope, recovery, and even laughter. But one day, the arrival of a mysterious new patient named Enzo threatens to turn everything upside down.

Together with my screenwriter, Kahina Le Querrec, I immersed myself in adolescent psychiatric wards. It wasn’t easy. With the utmost discretion, we observed individual and family therapy sessions, workshops of every kind – gardening, drawing, theatre, sports – and the young patients’ everyday lives: lunches, dinners, evenings spent together. We wanted to listen to their voices. And it was from those voices that the screenplay emerged. From this material emerged characters deeply inspired by reality: passionate, tireless healthcare professionals, often shaped by their own journeys of resilience; overwhelmed and disoriented parents; and, above all, wounded adolescents – at once childlike and remarkably mature – driven by self-destructive impulses yet animated by an overwhelming vitality. As we observed and wrote, these wards came to seem like the place where all of society’s wounds converge: bullying, the anxieties brought on by war and the climate crisis, drugs, violence, racism, and social tensions. The public hospital welcomes adolescents from every background and every social class, without distinction.

PRODUCTION 1:
AD VITAM FILMS - Alexandra Henochsberg,
71 rue de la Fontaine au Roi
75011 Paris, France
E-mail: films@advitamdistribution.com

PRODUCTION 2:
TROPDEBONHEUR PRODUCTIONS - Cédric Kahn,
21 rue du Bourg Tibourg
750004 Paris, France

WORLD SALES:
CHARADES - Pierre Mazars
3 Rue des Cottages
75018 Paris, France
E-mail: sales@charades.eu
Web: https://www.charades.eu/
Social Media: @charadesfilms – Instagram

ITALIAN DISTRIBUTION:
I Wonder Pictures
via della Zecca 2
40121 Bologna, Italy
E-mail: distribution@iwonderpictures.it
Web: http://iwonderpictures.com/
Social Media: @iwonderpictures - Instagram

PRESS OFFICE:
Gordon Spragg, Michael Arnon - WOLF Consultants
Tel: +49 1785470179
E-mail: hello@wolf-con.com

ITALIAN PRESS OFFICE:
Stefania Collalto - ECHO GROUP
Tel: +39 339 4279472
E-mail: collalto@echogroup.it

Lisa Menga - ECHO GROUP
Tel: 347 5251051
E-mail: menga@echogroup.it

Giulia Bertoni - ECHO GROUP
Tel: 338 5286378
E-mail: bertoni@echogroup.it

Additional press officers: André-Paul Ricci - French Press - apricci.presse@gmail.com