Youssou and Malek

Cinema

a musical by Simon Frenay, Youssou and Malek

A musical by Simon Frenay

Simon Frenay, film director, scene from Youssou and Malek

27′, HD, 2022

 

La Belle Affaire Productions


With: 

Adam Hafsia, Frank Onana, Claïna Clavaron, Mélodie Lauret, Lucas Ivoula, Kervens St Fort

Music by Niki Demiller

masteringcomposition-simon frenay
musical-characters-simon-frenay
93-paris-quartier-youssouf-malek-film

The deflagrating delicacy of adolescent dramas, an obligatory passage, profiled here in the perspective of the neighbourhoods bordering Paris. Two young lovers are forced to separate for an extremely positive reason, Youssou is accepted at Berkley. Simon Frenay concentrates a plethora of problems at this crucial moment for many teenagers: the film begins with a passionate kiss between two gorgeous boys, one black and one Arab. They’re in their childhood community, at home, among friends… 

It could have been a theatrical play, is a narrative in which, knowing the current socio-political situation until the last second, we carry the fear of a Shakespearean drama. The young director opts for the happy ending in which love opens the door to hope. The chromatics and composition of the film’s photography is perfectly manipulated to accompany the lyrics with clear symbolism. 

A surprising, poetic and universal musical. 

happy-ending-scene-simon-frenay-film-director

find out more about Simon Frenay here 

a chat with Simon Frenay
Simon Frenay movie director and actor, France
PRIMETIME

PRIMETIME

Sep 21, 2026 | ,

Lance Oppenheim’s Primetime returns to the early 2000s, when reality television was reshaping our relationship with truth, spectacle and journalism. With Robert Pattinson at its centre, the film revisits the rise of To Catch a Predator and asks what happens when exposing reality becomes inseparable from making compelling television.

Bucking Fastard – Werner Herzog

Bucking Fastard – Werner Herzog

Sep 18, 2026 | ,

In Bucking Fastard, Werner Herzog transforms the true story of two inseparable sisters into a strange and poetic meditation on love, obsession and our idea of normality. Played in staggering symbiosis by Kate and Rooney Mara, Jean and Joan Holbrooke inhabit reality according to their own logic, and when the world fails them, they begin tunnelling through a mountain.

Ink – director Danny Boyle

Ink – director Danny Boyle

Sep 16, 2026 | ,

Danny Boyle’s Ink returns to 1969 and the rebirth of a newspaper that would transform British journalism. Through halftone grain, audacious typography and the restless energy of Fleet Street, the film captures the exhilaration of a rebellion against the establishment, while quietly asking when the desire to inform became the instinct to provoke.