Best known for the 1989 classic Chocolat, this latest feature essay examines the day-to-day lives of young French Foreign Legion trainees as remembered by a non-commissioned officer whose mistreatment of one recruit earned him a court martial.

Capturing the dazzling landscapes of North Africa, the torturous field manoeuvres and the tedium of barracks life, Denis offers an engrossing meditation on man, nature and the forces that drive them. Denis, who spent much of her childhood in Africa, got very little local support during the shoot. "They thought we were making a porno film," she says.

Owen Levy