In ‘Gabin,’ Filmed Over a Decade, a Boy Is Caught Between Family’s Farm Life and His Dreams
Maxence Voiseux’s feature debut, world premiering in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight, centers on a young man in northern France from age 8 to 18.
French documentary filmmaker Maxence Voiseux clearly has patience, stamina and the desire to immerse audiences in a world that they are likely not familiar with. For his feature debut, Gabin, he filmed a young man for a decade, following him and his feelings of being caught between continuing his family’s farm life, as envisioned by his father, and the slowly developing desire to follow his own dreams from age 8 until age 18.
The documentary world premieres in the Directors’ Fortnight of Cannes 2026 on Thursday, May 14.
Gabin is the youngest child of the Jourdel family in the rural part of Artois, in north France, “where leaving feels like betrayal, and staying comes at a cost,” as press notes highlight. Destined to take over his father’s butcher shop, he feels torn between family loyalty, the desire to save the farm from financial ruin and dreams to break free.
Gabin unfolds in a countryside far away from the world’s eyes and hit by globalization. “I turn my camera towards what remains of that heritage: men rarely been rewarded by life,” Voiseux explains. “As a child, I saw Artois as bleak and austere. Only later did I begin to see it as a genuine film set, its inhabitants as living characters. The Artois region is where I first envisioned becoming a filmmaker, and I pay particular attention to its working-class roots.”
In 2014, for his graduation film, Of Men and Beasts, Voiseux made a short about the livestock market in Arras, Artois, where he met Gabin’s grandfather. He then met his three sons, with whom he shot The Heirs, his first mid-length docu.
Ahead of the docu’s premiere in the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, the filmmaker discusses the challenges and joys of shooting over a decade.
Voiseux has spent around 100-115 days shooting. “But actually, the most important thing was the time I spent with Gabin,” he says. “Some of those exchanges you can maybe feel in the movie, but you won’t see them. I spent so much time between the shooting sessions preparing and talking to them.”
On every visit, the filmmaker felt like a cousin of the family, with Gabin introducing him as his cousin to simplify interactions with other people. “But at the same time, I was also a filmmaker, and they knew it,” Voiseux notes. “So they knew after a while that I was thinking about what they were sharing with me and how I could put it in the movie or not. And I would ask them for their thoughts.”
‘Gabin’ Courtesy of Lightdox
By the time the filming was done, “Gabin had spent more time being shot by me than not shooting with me,” points out the director. “It was crazy journey for me, but also for him. And the movie is part of life for him and for me.”
The film created intimate conversations about Gabin’s future. At times, it was stressful for all involved, but they remained committed to making the docu.
Smetimes it became difficult to tell where life and film blurred together or one influenced the other.
“They used the film as a process, as molecule, to make their life a bit better and to make things happen,” he says. “Sometimes I, or we, didn’t even know if they were doing things for themselves, for the movie, for everyone else. Sometimes it’s a huge mix of life and film.”
Gabin visited Voiseux in Paris, opening his life to the young man in a way he hadn’t done before. “That was when we really went from cousins to becoming brothers,” shares the director.
“Now, it is just him and me, without the camera, without the process of cinema. Now we don’t talk about cinema. We talk only about life.”
‘Gabin’ Courtesy of Lightdox
Voiseux showed Gabin the docu before sending the final version to Cannes. “I went to Canada to screen it for him because I wanted to be sure that it’s okay for him in terms of integrity. We rented a small cinema and watched the movie together. It was so moving. And at the end of the movie, Gabin was crying.”
Gabin felt seen, heard and accurately presented. “He told me immediately that the movie was precise and so close to his heart,” Voiseux recalls.
All that was possible because of the “huge trust” between filmmaker and the people he filmed for so long and Voiseux’s “focus on the desire of my characters,” he emphasizes.
The filmmaker believes that the more local and specific a story is, the more universal it is. He hopes that audiences around the world will feel that Gabin’s loyalty to his family and region, as well as his dreams of breaking out of a fate decided by others speaks to them.
Concludes Voiseux: “Gabin is about a young man driven by his spirit of emancipation and strong fidelity to the Artois region. And that is a pretty strong story.”
Gabin, written and directed by Voiseux, with cinematography by François Chambe and Martin Roux and editing by Pascale Hannoyer and Natali Barrey. Produced by Cécile Lestrade and Elise Hug of Alter Ego Production, co-produced by Ulla Lehmann of Ama Film and Palmyre Badinier of Rita Productions, in co-production with SWR/ARTE and RTS Radio Télévision Suisse.
The French distributor for Gabin is Arizona Distribution. Lightdox is handling sales.
Source:Variety, Press Notes, Cannes Film Fest 2026.
