On Thursday, Virginie Efira and Isabelle Huppert are starring in Asghar Farhadi’s new film, “Histoires parallèles,” competing at the Cannes Film Festival. The last time they acted together was ten years ago in Paul Verhoeven’s film “Elle.” Prior to that, they shared the screen in the comedy “Mon pire cauchemar” alongside Benoît Poelvoorde in 2011. Isabelle Huppert recalled, “In ‘Mon pire cauchemar,’ Virginie was very funny. I remember a scene on the street where she came out of the house… On that scene, I saw a great comic power.” Virginie Efira remembered the shooting: “It was one of my first films, and when I arrived, they told me, ‘Can you stay a bit? Isabelle would like to meet you.’ And I thought to myself, ‘But why?’ I had been a bit of a presenter and all that, and so this kindness, this look, and this curiosity, it really helped me at the time.” A close-knit duo who are now back on screen in Farhadi’s new film, “Histoires parallèles,” presented this Thursday at the Cannes Film Festival.
In “Histoires parallèles,” Isabelle Huppert plays Sylvie, a writer in need of inspiration who spies on her neighbors to write her next novel. Using a spyglass, she imagines the life of a woman (Virginie Efira) in the opposite apartment and two brothers who work with her (Pierre Niney and Vincent Cassel). A Franco-Iranian drama where fiction blends with reality when young Adam (played by Adam Bessa), hired by Sylvie to assist her in her daily life, crosses the street to meet them. Isabelle Huppert explains, “During filming, there was initially the part of Adam and me, then the part with Virginie, Pierre, and Vincent, in very different atmospheres because we shot in the studio in this apartment, with only a few scenes outside.” Virginie Efira recalls, “I had quite a few scenes with Adam Bessa, who is quite brilliant and remarkable … the way he asks questions, enters a character. And with Pierre Niney and Vincent Cassel, it was great. Vincent has a spectacular energy, he changes the atmosphere when he arrives, and he loves to play deeply, even in rehearsal. And Pierre, it was joyful to see him again. I had made a film with him a long time ago, ’20 years apart,’ and he is someone with whom I share a lot of things, about humor, derision, we can make fun of each other.”
“Histoires parallèles” by Asghar Farhadi, in cinemas on May 14, 2026.
