Synopsis
One hot summer evening. Alone at home, by the pool and bored to death, 16-year-old Clément is killing boredom by swiping guys’ profiles on a dating app. Determined to lose his virginity, he lies about his age on his date with Naël, a young man 8 years his senior. As the moment of intimacy approaches, Clément is rushing things… But it is by discovering a body completely different from Naël’s that Clément will grow up.
Director Biography – Arnaud Dufeys
Arnaud Dufeys is a Belgian filmmaker and producer, who graduated from the Institut des Arts de Diffusion. His graduation film, ATOMS, won numerous awards in international films festivals, including the Grand Prix at the Zinebi Festival in Bilbao and the Best Director Award at the Curta Cinema in Rio de Janeiro.
INVINCIBLE SUMMER is his third short film, following Vertiges. He has just completed his first TV documentary “Pour que cela n’arrive plus” and is currently developing two features co-written and co-directed with Charlotte Devillers : “On vous croit” and “Plaisir”.
From his teenage summers memories, Arnaud remembers long periods of boredom. Long stretches of time lasting more than two months, with little or nothing going on. Today, he never feels bored anymore. Too many things to do, too many ideas, too many desires… More resources but less time, or rather the feeling that it’s going by faster and faster.
In INVINCIBLE SUMMER, a teenager experiences time as he spends a late summer day discovering bodies. Clément is in a hurry to lose his virginity. He can’t wait to be an adult, and he wants his first time to be on this day. Naël’s body obsesses and electrifies him. But they are interrupted by his old friend Angelo, who calls him to help.
He is not yet aware that for Angelo, this is a crucial turning point: one that marks a certain physical decline; a body that no longer responds quite so well to the desires of the spirit. It’s when Clément comes face-to-face with the weakness of Angelo’s body, in terms of effort and duration, that he realizes that he can wait and postpone his first time for a while.
Thus, INVINCIBLE SUMMER is a film about the dawn and twilight of adulthood; a parallelism between three bodies: the developing one (Clément), the one at the peak of a certain physical vigor (Naël) and the one showing the first signs of weakness associated with aging (Angelo).