Cannes is becoming a regular fixture in Claude Mouriéras' diary. His debut feature film, Montalvo And Child, made the Critics' Week selection in 1989, and his last film, Dis-Moi Que Je Rêve (aka Mooncalf) was showcased in the Directors Fortnight festival two years ago.

Equally renowned for a series of TV documentaries (Hélène Grimaud, Pianiste) that still air regularly on ARTE, the French-German cultural channel, the 47-year-old Mouriéras has an eye for detail that deliberately blurs the often problematic space between fiction and reality. Mooncalf, for example, the story of a 20-year-old handicapped boy whose mother refuses to bow to the prejudices of those around her, was shot on location at a farm in the Haute Savoie section of the French Alps. The backdrop conveyed both the grandeur of the mountains and nature's brooding menace, while the blend of professional actors and non-professionals from the area lent realism and immediacy to the story. But at its core, Mooncalf was also a film about familial relationships, and this is also the main theme of Mouriéras' latest.