Reims Polar
7th INTERNATIONAL THRILLER FILM FESTIVAL

Le jury

New Blood

Eye Haïdara © Lucie de Bonneville
Eye Haïdara © Lucie de Bonneville

Eye Haïdara

President of the New Blood Jury
Actress & director

Eye Haïdara took her first steps into film in 2007 with Audrey Estrougo’s Ain’t Scared. Three years later, she joined the Lorient Theater Academy under the direction of Éric Vigner, taking part in several of his creations including the play The Faculty, directed by Christophe Honoré and presented at the Avignon Theater Festival. She reunited with Audrey Estrougo in 2016 for Jailbirds. In 2017, she stood out in Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache’s C’est la vie!, for which she received César and Lumière nominations for Most Promising Actress. She went on to work with Michel Leclerc (Battle of the Classes, 2018, and Not My Type, 2021), Cédric Klapisch (Someone, Somewhere, 2019), Michel Hazanavicius (The Lost Prince, 2020), Lisa Azuelos (The Book of Wonders, 2021), Mélissa Drigeard (Hawaï, 2021), and Julien Rambaldi (The Nannies, 2022). That same year, she joined season 2 of Arte’s series In Treatment. Recently, she played leading roles in Sylvie Gautier’s Bright Women (2023), Karine Blanc and Michel Tavares’ Take Me Home (2023), Lucas Bernard’s In the Sub for Love (2024), Joachim Lafosse’s Six Days in Spring (2025) and Mélisa Godet’s A Place for Her (2026). In 2025, Eye Haïdara directed Cerfa, her first short film. The actress will soon appear in Rachel Lang’s thriller Mata, the closing film of Reims Polar this year, and Agnès Jaoui’s Crescendo

Peter Dourountzis

Director & screenwriter

A 2002 graduate of ESRA Paris in directing and screenwriting, Peter Dourountzis joined the Paris SAMU humanitarian emergency service the following year, where he dedicated 15 years to fieldwork. His first short film, The Wanderer (2014), received the Unifrance Grand Prize at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival and the Best Short Film Award at the Amiens Film Festival. He then directed two other short films, Grands boulevards and Le dernier raccourci. In 2020, he directed his first feature film, Rascal, in which Pierre Deladonchamps portrays a dangerous psychopath hiding behind an angelic appearance. In 2024, he co-wrote Barbès, Little Algérie, directed by Hassan Guerrar, before directing his second feature, Vultures, starring Sami Bouajila, Mallory Wanecque and Jean-Pierre Darroussin, a crime thriller, about a journalist investigating a brutal murder with his daughter.

Peter Dourountzis © DR
Peter Dourountzis © DR
Marc Ruchmann © DR
Marc Ruchmann © DR

Marc Ruchmann

Actor, musician & director

Trained at the Conservatory of the 10th Arrondissement of Paris and then the Chaillot Theatre, Marc Ruchmann broke out with François Ozon’s Five Times Two (2004). He went on to appear in such large-scale productions as Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s The Tourist (2010) and Jérôme Salle’s Largo Winch 2 (2011), before working with directors Julie Delpy, Diane Kurys, Richard Berry, Justine Triet, Cécilia Rouaud and Antonin Baudry. On the television front, he played the lead role in The Hookup Plan on Netflix, and has appeared in the thrillers Mismatch, Manipulations, The House Opposite, Unforgettable: Memories of Revenge and Désenchantées. He has directed two short films: Who am I after your exile in me? (2015) and Neither shore nor dove (2018), loosely based on poems by Mahmoud Darwish. In 2025, he appeared in Frédéric Quiring’s Sweet Jesus. He also works as a musician and a composer under the pseudonym Markus. After three albums as a beatboxer, this year he will release his first album as a singer-songwriter. He is currently filming the upcoming adaptation of Fantômas with Frédérique Tellier. 

Lawrence Valin

Director, screenwriter, actor & producer

Lawrence Valin graduated from La Fémis in 2017. In 2020, his medium-length film The Loyal Man, in which he also starred, was selected at the Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival. Lawrence Valin received the Best Actor Award there. His film was nominated for the César for Best Short Film the following year. His acting career began with a role in Julie Lopes-Curval’s High Society (2014) and Nadir Moknèche’s Lola Pater (2017). Little Jaffna, his first feature film as both director and actor, was selected at the Venice Critics’ Week, the Toronto International Film Festival and Reims Polar, where it won both the Jury Prize and the Audience Award last year. He is currently developing Tchao Police, his second feature, continuing his ambition to create “auteur blockbusters”: popular narratives infused with a personal and political vision.

Lawrence Valin © DR
Lawrence Valin © DR
Anja Verderosa © DR
Anja Verderosa © DR

Anja Verderosa

Actress

Originally from Fontenay-sous-Bois, Anja Verderosa discovered theater at a very young age and trained with the Va Sano company in her hometown’s Espace Gérard Philipe, then later at the Cours Simon drama school. She also studied piano and singing at the Fontenay Conservatory. After first appearing in the 2021 series Skam France, the young actress made her film debut in Aurélien Peyre’s Hearts on Fire. Her performance as Queen garnered her a César nomination and a Lumière Award for Most Promising Actress. In 2025, she starred in Judith Godrèche’s Mémoire de fille and Armand Foëx and Clément Devillers’ À bientôt quelque part.