P'tit Quinquin (film)


P'tit Quinquin is a 2014 French murder mystery film/miniseries directed by Bruno Dumont. Originally premiering as a film at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival in May, it was broadcast in September 2014 as a miniseries on French television.
A sequel, Coincoin and the Extra-Humans, was made by Dumont in 2018, featuring most of the cast of the original film.

Cast

Most of the cast was made up of natives of the Pas-de-Calais region, where the film is set, with little to no prior acting experience. Several of the cast members also have physical disabilities, such as Jason Cirot, who plays Quinquin's uncle Dany, or Bernard Pruvost, who has a tic disorder. Dumont responded to criticism that he was exploiting or ridiculing such individuals: "They're acting. We spent a lot of time rehearsing, and it's actor's work." A repeating gag where Dany spins around before falling was suggested by Cirot: "Let's put this in, it's something I love doing." According to Dumont, Provost's tics were more pronounced on-screen than off, due to a combination of nervousness and the use of an earpiece through which Pruvost received his lines: "The reason he keeps moving his head is because he's listening to what I'm saying in his ear."

Accolades

The prestigious Cahiers du Cinéma featured P'tit Quinquin on their cover of the September issue and placed it as the best picture on the 2014 Top Ten chart. In 2019, the magazine placed the film at #3 on their Top Ten of the decade.