“The Kingdom” is a riveting crime-thriller father-daughter relationship drama about organized crime accomplished by debuting director Jul Colonna

By Oliver Carnay

THE KINGDOM (LE ROYAUME) Director @julcolonna with wife-music composer @audrey.ismael and co-producer @ant.lafon attended the screening and Q&A of their film on Wednesday at the @theamericanfrenchff

Julien Colonna‘s astonishing first feature turns the mafia genre on its head, very simply by telling it from the point of view of a 15-year-old girl. When summer begins, Lesia is going to the beach and wrapped up in clandestine meetings with her boyfriend… until she’s suddenly whisked away by a man on a motorbike and taken to the isolated seaside villa where her Corsican crime-boss father is on the lam. It’s a ritual she’s more than familiar with; it’s the story of her life. But this is the summer Lesia’s father opens both his heart and his world to her, and she will never be the same.

Co-written with COLCOA/TAFFF veteran writer-director Jeanne Herry (In Safe Hands and All Your Faces), The Kingdom not only lures us into that sinister world, but is simultaneously moving, chilling and complex in its illustration of how the torch is passed in an endless wheel of violence. The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and was presented at #TAFFF24 prior to its French theatrical release.

Born in Corsica, Julien Colonna began his career directing commercials for such clients as Mastercard, Hennessey and Verbreuil. He wrote and directed his first short, The Confession, in 2015, which was followed by the documentary Luc Yang’s Girls (2019). He’s directed two TV series, Brutal: Taste of Violence (2016) and Gloria (2021).