All Good Children is the final title of an adaptation started under the name of the book it was modeled after: The Republic of Trees. This book by Sam Taylor, which is very popular in Great Britain, tells the story of Michael and Louis, two English children aged 11 and 12 who are forced to move to the North of France to go live with an aunt following their mother’s suicide. Upset by these happenings Michael seeks comfort with Isobel, a young English girl living in the nearby castle with her parents and her younger brother Alex. But Isobel is a rebel and a smitten Michael follows her in all her excesses. These will lead the young boy to go beyond the limits of reason, even if for that he has to fight with his older brother and defy Isobel’s family.
Even if All Good Children is her very first feature, it is not the first time Alicia Duffy goes to Cannes: her second short film The Most Beautiful Man in the World was selected in 2003.
As we said, this feature united some very exceptional characteristics. First, it is a co-production between Belgium, France and Ireland, in almost equal parts. For Belgium the co-production was in the hands of Patrick Quinet for Artémis . It is also a joint effort of three regional funds, members of Cineregio , with Wallimage of course, but also the Crrav in Nord-Pas de Calais.
Several technicians invested themselves on this project on the Walloon side: Igor Gabriel and Paul Rouschop for example worked on the film set, Garance Van Rossum (Le Tango des Rashevski, La Face Cachée, Altiplano) supervised the make-up department…. Several companies such as Eye-Lite, 4 Movie, Merveille and CQFD also worked on the film.
