Synopsis
On the shores of Lake Geneva lies the small Swiss town of Vevey. It’s the end of the seventies. On his release from prison Eddy—a 40-year-old Belgian small time crook— is met by his friend, Osman. They have made a deal: Osman will let Eddy stay in his shed and in exchange, Eddy will take care of his 7-year-old daughter Samira while her mother is in the hospital. It’s the Christmas season, but their shared, grinding poverty has made Eddy quite bitter. Then Charlie Chaplin’s death is announced on the television, as well as the true extent of his fabulous wealth. Eddy starts daydreaming… and comes up with a crazy idea: what if he stole the actor’s corpse and demanded a ransom from the family?

71 La rançon de la gloire by Xavier Beauvois – France, Belgium, Switzerland, 114′
language: French – s/t English, Italian
Benoît Poelvoorde, Roschdy Zem, Séli Gmach, Chiara Mastroianni, Nadine Labaki

Director’s Statement
The idea here is not to retrace truthfully the sad epic of the two comrades, or to make a documentary film about an event that, in the end, doesn’t really deserve such attention… but rather to slide, little by little, towards a bittersweet comedy of sorts, a movie that is both funny and moving… What could be called a comedy à l’italienne, in which a humble and sincere homage would be paid to the man who, in Einstein’s words, “was understood by everyone while no-one on Earth understands me.”

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