Cent Mille Milliards

(100,000,000,000,000)

Friday, April 4, 7:15 p.m. @ 2220 Arts + Archives

West Coast Premiere with director Virgil Vernier and producer Jean de Forêts in person

Saturday, April 5, 3:00 p.m. @ Now Instant Image Hall

Director: Virgil VernierFrance, 2024, 77 min, DCP
Drifting through an ethereal Monaco during the eerie, emptied-out limbo of the Christmas holidays, a diffident young sex worker named Afine goes about his rounds with seeming indifference, while gradually forming a strange, tentative bond with preadolescent Julia, whose parents, Chinese real estate developers, have left her in the charge of her Serbian babysitter Vesna.

Paris-based independent filmmaker Virgil Vernier’s new film is a mesmerizing, sharply observed portrait of sex work in a hyper-commodified world. It’s Christmas in glittering Monaco, and a sex worker (Zakaria Bouti) typically spends his holidays alone amid servicing the ultra-wealthy clients; but this year, he decides to stay in town to spend his off-hours with a Serbian babysitter (Mina Gajovic) and her young charge (Victoire Song). With exemplary work from non-professional actors, Vernier depicts the purgatory of the gig economy with an uncanny, relaxed style and an infectious warmth and sweetness.

French with English Subtitles

Cast: Zakaria Bouti, Victoire Song, Mina Gajovic

Producers: Jean Des Forêts
Writers: Virgil Vernier, Benjamin Klintoe
Director of Photography: Jordane Chouzenoux
Editing: Charlotte Cherici
Sound: Amaury Arboun and Simon Apostolou
Costumes: Pauline Croce
Production Designer: Marie Ward