The Super 8 Years

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1:47

The Super 8 Years

2022

1h 2m

Documentary

Biography

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

93%

Tomatometer

27 Reviews

80%

Popcornmeter

Fewer than 50 Ratings

The French writer and 2022 Nobel Prize awardee Annie Ernaux, whose novels and memoirs have gained her a devoted following (and whose autobiographical L'Événement was adapted just last year into the critically acclaimed film Happening), opens a treasure trove with this delicate journey into her family's memory. Compiled from gorgeously textured home movie images from 1972 to 1981 -- when her first books were published, her sons became teenagers, and her husband Philippe brought an 8mm film camera everywhere they went -- this portrait of a time, place, and moment of personal and political significance takes us from holidays and family rituals in suburban bourgeois France to trips abroad in Albania and Egypt, Spain and the USSR. Supplying her own introspective voiceover, Ernaux and her co-filmmaker, her son David, guide the viewer through fragments of a decade, diffuse and vivid in equal measure. The Super 8 Years is a remarkable visual extension of Ernaux's ongoing literary project to make sense of the mysterious past and the unknowable future.

Critics Consensus

The Super 8 Years adds some personal context to Annie Ernaux's work while taking a bittersweet look back at a bygone era.

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Catherine Wheatley

Sight & Sound

May 13, 2026

The marriage ends, the career takes off, but off screen, life goes on. Since Philippe took the camera and left only the footage from these nine bittersweet years, we’re left to imagine what that might look like for the generations to follow.

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Wendy Ide

Observer (UK)

Jun 27, 2023

3/5

It’s a wisp of a thing, little more than an hour long. But Ernaux’s lucid, perceptive narration brings a more profound significance to the scrappy, amateurish reels shot by her late ex-husband, Philippe Ernaux.

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Kevin Maher

The Times (UK)

Jun 26, 2023

2/5

Ernaux’s righteous feminism is subsumed by the huffy virtue signaling of a first-world moaner who doesn’t like skiing holidays, is bored by Moroccan snake charmers and is annoyed because she didn’t get to see “the real Albania”.

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Fedor Tot

WeLoveCinema

Sep 20, 2023

4/5

Astonishing diary film knits together the personal and political

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Maria Lattila

WhyNow (UK)

Jul 7, 2023

3/5

The Super 8 Years flirts with greatness and fleetingly even achieves it, but ultimately falls victim to the limits of its medium.

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Victoria Luxford

City AM

Jul 5, 2023

4/5

The Super-8 Years might not be the most focused work of Ernaux’s career, but it offers a glimpse into the kind of personal intimacy that made her so beloved. A compact and worthwhile companion to all fans of her work.

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David Ernaux-Briot

Director

Annie Ernaux

Director

Annie Ernaux

Narrator

Annie Ernaux

Writer

David Thion

Producer

Philippe Martin

Producer

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Synopsis

The French writer and 2022 Nobel Prize awardee Annie Ernaux, whose novels and memoirs have gained her a devoted following (and whose autobiographical L'Événement was adapted just last year into the critically acclaimed film Happening), opens a treasure trove with this delicate journey into her family's memory. Compiled from gorgeously textured home movie images from 1972 to 1981 -- when her first books were published, her sons became teenagers, and her husband Philippe brought an 8mm film camera everywhere they went -- this portrait of a time, place, and moment of personal and political significance takes us from holidays and family rituals in suburban bourgeois France to trips abroad in Albania and Egypt, Spain and the USSR. Supplying her own introspective voiceover, Ernaux and her co-filmmaker, her son David, guide the viewer through fragments of a decade, diffuse and vivid in equal measure. The Super 8 Years is a remarkable visual extension of Ernaux's ongoing literary project to make sense of the mysterious past and the unknowable future.

Director: David Ernaux-Briot, Annie Ernaux
Producer: David Thion, Philippe Martin
Screenwriter: Annie Ernaux
Distributor: Kino Lorber
Production Co: Les Films Pelléas
Genre: Documentary, Biography
Original Language: French (France)
Release Date (Theaters): Dec 16, 2022, Limited
Box Office (Gross USA): $14.6K
Runtime: 1h 2m
Aspect Ratio: Flat (1.85:1)

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