DELETE HISTORY

Available for rental: Tuesday, June 22, 2021 @ Noon PDT → Friday, June 25 @ Noon PDT

Join our Zoom Discussion with Le Professeur Kevin Elstob, on Thursday, June 24 @ 6:30pm PDT.**
If you purchase the film or the Virtual Festival Pass, you will receive the Zoom invitation. Questions about the discussion? Email kelstob@csus.edu.

Suggested short film pairing: L’effort commercial

In a small provincial town, three neighbors – who met during the 2019 Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) protests – have become lost in new technologies, consumerism, the gig economy, and social media.

There’s Marie (stand-up comedian Blanche Gardin), who is afraid of losing her son’s respect because of a sex tape posted online by a one-night stand she can’t even remember (a hilarious cameo by Vincent Lacoste, far from his serious turn in Faithful, streaming this year at the SFFF). There’s Bertrand (Denis Podalydès, The Sweet Escape – SFFF 2016), who tries to make personal connections with telemarketers and wants to save his daughter from online bullying. And, there’s Christine (the great Corinne Masiero, Invisibles – SFFF 2019), who can’t understand why her Uber driver ratings remain so low when she goes out of her way to provide her passengers with a unique experience.

With the help of a genuine hacker who lives in a windmill and calls himself God (Bouli Lanners), they resolve to reclaim their lives back from technology and endeavor to go fight the Big Tech companies on their own territory: the warehouses that store all digital data. All they want is to delete their online history and start afresh. Maybe their battle is futile from the beginning – but you never know…

Anarchist directors Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern (Le Grand Soir, – SFFF 2013) are back with a hilarious tongue-in-cheek comedy that points to the inhuman absurdity of our times. Delete History is full of quirky observations about how smartphones, social media, and other innovations supposedly intended to simplify our lives can complicate everything instead. Many of us will relate, and it feels good to laugh about it!

Delete History received the Silver Bear at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival.

Not Rated (language).

Original Title: Effacer l’historique

Reviews

Tender, political and poetic, the cinema of Kervern and Delépine continues to delight with “Delete History”.
Simon Riaux - Ecran Large

Delépine and Kervern feature three heroes fighting against algorithms, robots and Internet giants in a farcical, sad, lo-fi and very successful comedy.
Luc Chessel - Libération

A hilarious and desperate comedy about the absurdity of our society.
Marie Sauvion - Télérama

Gustave Kervern and Benoit Delépine deserve their four stars hands down! More than ever we need free filmmakers, with a unique style and outlook, in an era saturated with notation and formatting.
Xanaé Bove - Culturopoing.com